When Dreams Become Real
by Fornara
Summary: What would you do?
1. Prologue

Okay, listen up. If I'm guessing right, you came onto this page looking for a run-of-the-mill fanfiction – some action, drama, maybe a little romance. But I've got to tell you right now that this is no fabrication of my own ideas. This is really happening to me.

Let me explain a little about myself before I go on – My name's Hannah. I won't give any more than that, for safety issues. I'm a typical 14-year-old girl. Brown hair, bluish-gray eyes, the whole average-kid shebang. I also happen to be a total Pokemon nerd. When I was younger, I was given a Gameboy Color (around the time the DS was released, mind you). My first game on that sucker was Pokemon Yellow, then Silver and Gold. After that I was hooked. I've played through nearly every game and generation of Pokemon, pretty much in order. Last time I checked, I've got Yellow, Sapphire, FireRed, Pearl, Platinum, Explorers of Sky, Shadows of Almia, and just recently I added both Black and White to the group.

Well, I've rambled enough about that. The point is, I'm a big fan. I've sifted through fanfictions myself, and since I saw a few not too different from this, I figured this would be the safest place to tell what's happened.

I've probably annoyed you by now, huh? 'What's happened,' you're thinking. 'Get to the point,' you're thinking. Well, I'm stuck in the world of Pokemon. And now you're thinking, 'Oh, great. Another tale about a Pokenerd getting sucked into their games. I'm gone'. Please don't go – I swear, it's not like that.

Yesterday, I was running the same schedule as usual. Go to school, pretend I'm interested, go home, chill out. It was just an average day. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for maybe that kid who started break-dancing in the hallway. I played my games until about two in the morning until I crashed. It was when I woke up again that this got started.

You know those movies with the amazing graphics? The ones that look real, but on a second look are animated? Yeah, that's what I woke up to. A setting very similar to those movies – trees with enhanced-color leaves, a lake of glittering pure water. Both and more were present.

I'll stop beating around the bush – I found myself in Sinnoh this morning, the setting of the Diamond-Pearl-Platinum arc. I didn't know that for some time, of course – I just thought I was having the coolest dream ever. I was in my typical weekend gear – my favorite American Eagle jeans, a random t-shirt, a necklace with a wing pendant, tennis shoes, and the purple hoodie that's practically glued to me no matter where I am. I had a backpack of mine over my shoulders, and loaded down with stuff I hadn't felt like going through at the time. Other than that, I had nothing. After some wandering, I found out I was at Lake Verity from a signpost. The only reason I didn't keel over with shock on the spot was because, as said, I thought I was dreaming. However, I never saw a single Pokemon – also unsurprising to me.

I eventually grew bored of the area, and started heading toward the Route I knew would lead to Twinleaf Town. I was forcefully made to realize this was no dream by two attacking Starly – hello, irony. I didn't have any Pokemon, which I quickly realized, so I just did my best to run from them. I got pretty cut up by their beaks by time I got to Twinleaf, and I'm ashamed to admit that I wound up unconscious not two steps into the little rural town.

I'm writing this from the room that's supposed to belong to Dawn. Judging from what her mom – Mrs. Johanna, I mean – told me, some dude nearby found me and took me to her to get fixed up. She did a pretty good job. I didn't actually get terribly hurt, but that's just my lack of pain tolerance biting me in the butt, I guess. She's letting me stay here (actually, not letting me leave) until I heal up a little. I got the whole 'tall grass' lecture, but in the end she let me off pretty easy.

While I was in the house, I went through my backpack. I found my laptop in there – what I'm using right now – along with my MP3 player, their chargers, two changes of clothes, and the other typical things I'd bring for, say, a sleepover or something. I also found something I did not expect at all; my HeartGold/SoulSilver Post-Game guide. I hid that thing at the bottom of my backpack, since I could hardly explain such a thing to anyone here who saw it.

By now, you're probably wondering why I hadn't freaked out – well, I did. Bad. But it was all in my head. I just played the dumb act and bit my lip, which I've had plenty of practice doing in front of my parents. I plan on venting my canned hysteria as soon as I'm alone and unable to be heard.

I know this will pass as a crappy chapter, so I'm calling it the 'Prologue' of my electronic journal. I plan on telling exactly what happens to me here with this, so if this all does happen to be a dream, when I wake up I can check my computer. If it's gone, so is the dream. If it isn't...well, I'm not going to go there for now.

As to why my laptop can still get Earth internet (I'm temporarily assuming this isn't Earth), I have no clue. I plan to try to figure that out while I'm here...or at least until I wake up. So...I guess I'm done for today. Hannah, out.


	2. Chapter 1: Sandgem City

I figure I should apologize now. I didn't give you much information with my last 'chapter', so I'll try to make things a little clearer now. I..._reached_ Lake Verity about two days after the in-game Sinnoh trio – being Lucas, Dawn, and Barry – took off on their adventure. Lucas got Chimchar, Dawn got Piplup, Barry has Turtwig. Hearing about that sort of dashed my hopes a little. I'll admit, when I got here I was kinda hoping to start off an adventure of my own. Since I'm stuck here and all...

Dawn's mom has taken good care of me for the few days I've been here. I've mainly been trying to figure out a way to get to Sandgem Town without going into the tall grass, and not just because I want to avoid getting hacked up again. In the Platinum game, Professor Rowan more or less threw a temper tantrum (forgive me, Professor!) when the rival tried to go into the grass unprotected. If there's any chance of me getting a Pokemon from him – and I'm well-convinced by this point that a Pokemon is my only ticket to getting out of Twinleaf to figure things out – I have to get on his good side.

I think today would be my best shot at taking off for Sandgem. I'm just a _little_ impatient to get some clues about what the heck happened to me.

…...

"Where are you going, Hannah?" I winced at the sound of the voice; I'd been caught trying to sneak out the front door, backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Uh...I'm just going to check around near Lake Verity. Is that okay?"

"Sure, but don't be too long...I'm sorry if I'm being overbearing. Mothers will be mothers," Mrs. Johanna said cheerfully. I was touched that she was worried about me, and now I was a little guilty for lying. "I'll try to be back before 3 o' clock," I answered, and I left. As soon as I was out the door I broke out running for Route 201. I did veer off toward Lake Verity, but only to get up near the ledge. I now understood why you couldn't go back over them in the game – it towered a foot over my head, making it possible to safely jump down it, but because it sloped inward, it was all but impossible to climb back up.

Being the bull-headed, stubborn teenager I am, I attempted to climb it anyways. I managed to toss my arms over the ledge, but I slipped back off almost immediately. _Well, this plan is going straight down the drain..._ I had intended to climb up onto the ledges and take the grass-free path to Sandgem, but clearly that was not going to work. I started grudgingly heading back to Twinleaf when I heard hard-paced footsteps behind me. With wide eyes, I sidestepped just as the blonde-haired boy I expected came barreling past. He hadn't even stopped to acknowledge me, so I assumed whatever he was off for must have been a bigger deal than usual. Rolling my eyes, I kept walking.

Then it hit me; I did not have Pokemon. Barry did. There was no way Barry was just going to lazily hang around Twinleaf, so if I got him to let me tag along...

I went sprinting after him, gaining faster than I'd expected. "Hey! Yo, Barry! Wait up a sec!" The boy came skidding to a halt, and he turned to face me, amber eyes gleaming curiously. "Who are you?" he demanded. I paused myself – I hadn't actually considered how to explain my knowing his name. I thought fast. "Uh, long story, but I've been temporarily taken in by Dawn's mom. She told me about you. I heard you got your first Pokemon-"

Barry cut me off there, talking excitedly. "Yeah, I did! My Turtwig is so awesome! I mean, I'll tell him the moves, and he'll use them, and-"

I cut him off this time. "I've got a small problem I was hoping you could help with. I need to get to Sandgem, but I don't have any pokemon of my own, you see." I opened my mouth to continue further, but yet again I was cut off.

"I know!" Barry exclaimed. "You should come with me on my way back and I'll make sure you get there fine!" He beamed like this was the idea of a total genius, and I didn't want to bother him. "Thanks!" I said, barely forcing down my excitement.

He certainly didn't keep me waiting – he came flying out of his house not five minutes after we'd talked, and he waved for me to follow him out. "C'mon! You gotta keep up!" I gladly did so, matching him pace for pace. He seemed mildly surprised by this, and I didn't blame him. The player characters (Lucas and Dawn) were never as active as their rival, and tended to walk more often than sprint.

The Route had been traversed in a matter of minutes, but it took longer than I thought it would. I guess the actual landscape of Sinnoh in...well, wherever I was, was more realistically spaced. I was vaguely grateful for that, and also annoyed; I'm not an athletic person, exactly. Barry skidded to a halt in front of Professor Rowan's lab, saluted to me briefly, and bolted inside.

I awkwardly followed – I hadn't expected him to go to the same place as me. He was eagerly showing his Pokedex to the Professor himself, who was nodding with his form of gruff approval. I gingerly approached him, and he soon noticed me, along with Barry.

"Hello. Who may you be?" he inquired, and Barry's face lit with the realization that he didn't know who I was either. I managed to yank my gaze away from my feet (not to say that I was staring levelly with the Professor) and I stammered out, "Uh, Hannah, sir. I kind of wanted to discuss – er, ask – you something."

He nodded simply to me. "Go ahead; now's as good a time as any." I hesitated; I hadn't really expected to make my request in front of Barry, but it wasn't like I had a choice now. "Well, er, sir, I was wondering if I could...have a Pokemon, maybe. I mean, I can offer something in return-!"

Rowan locked eyes with me, and I found myself trembling. In the games I'd played, I hadn't even been vaguely intimidated by this Professor, but in person he emanated a sort of authorative aura. "You needn't offer anything in return," he said. "But I'm concerned about what would happen to a Pokemon that wound up in your possession. You are clearly a timid-mannered child, and I doubt you would have the nerve or willpower to do anything when extreme circumstances call for it."

I straightened a little – this guy was a good judge of character. "I would do anything neccesary to help a Pokemon, especially if the circumstances called for it." A short "Hmm." was all I received as a response. He kept his eyes on me, clearly making more accurate inferences. "...Very well, then. You seem to be an honest person, at least. He turned to his worktables for a moment, and Barry glanced at me, raising an eyebrow as if to say, 'What just happened there?'

Rowan picked up a pokeball, examining it with deep consideration. One of the nearby aides perked up. "Wait a moment, sir. You've already given away three of our most important research Pokemon. Surely you aren't thinking of giving away that one as well...? Especially given its aggressive nature..."

The aging Professor only turned to face me again, holding the pokeball tightly in one hand. "Tell me, Hannah. Do you love Pokemon?" The answer was out of my mouth almost as soon as the question was asked. "Absolutely, sir." He nodded slightly. "Good answer. Here; take this pokeball. Inside is a Pokemon, as you may have inferred. Please don't release it inside, though – it tends to make a mess of the workspace." He held out the pokeball, and I tentatively took it – I was having a hard time believing this was happening.

Barry paced on the spot, dying for the Professor's attention again. "Professor, is she going to get a Pokedex, too? Is she? Is she? Is she?" His words spilled out quickly. The Professor again looked thoughtful, and he turned to his table again, picking up a mostly rectangular object. "Hannah, will you use this Pokedex to record all the Pokemon you find in Sinnoh? It would be a large help to my research."

I considered telling him that I already knew every Pokemon from every region up to and past Sinnoh, with at least three facts to each one of the 649 creatures, but instead I simply said, "Consider it done, sir." He handed me the sleek device, which surprised me by being black instead of the usual red.

"Even though I've spent several years doing so, I always get a thrill out of traveling with Pokemon. Take care of your new Pokemon, and enjoy the experiences of this region." Rowan said, smiling for the first time since I walked into the building. I smiled back, nodding my head. "Shall do, sir!"

Barry was the one to kill the moment. "C'mon, c'mon! I'll show you how to catch Pokemon and the Pokecenter and everything!" I smirked, already knowing everything about this, but I let the hyperactive boy drag me out of the building and around town. After all...what could possibly go wrong now?


	3. Chapter 2: Meeting the Starter

"And that should be it!" Barry announced, finally allowing me a moment to breathe. He'd been running me around Sandgem, explaining in detail the functions of the different facilities, and to wrap it up he'd taken me out to Route 202 and shown me how to catch Pokemon by nabbing a Starly.

He shoved five new pokeballs in my hands, grinning like an idiot. "There! Now you can catch more Pokemon yourself!" I accepted them, tucking them away in my backpack. "Thanks, man. These'll be a huge help." I looked up to see him already distracted by a passing Shinx, and it took a lot to cover my snickering. "I wonder what Dawn and Lucas will think when they hear there's another DexHolder!" he said, spinning to face me again. "I'm gonna go catch up – I was planning to get to Oreburgh City ages ago! Five seconds 'till I bolt! Five...four...threetwooneZERO!"

The hyperactive kid took off like all hell was on his tail, and the snickers couldn't be hidden that time. "Can't sit still, that kid." I said to myself, and I got out of the tall grass he'd dragged me to. I still hadn't seen the Pokemon I'd been given, and I planned on doing so. As soon as I was clear, I checked out the pokeball. Sure, I'd seen how they worked in the anime and in my games, but now that I was actually releasing a Pokemon, I was pretty sure I'd screw it up.

I tentatively pressed the button, and the familiar red beams came out, forming into a shape about two feet in front of me. When the light faded, standing there was the last Pokemon I'd expected – a Cranidos. It shook itself a little, and turned to face me. Crimson eyes glittering with distaste, it snorted and turned away. I sighed; of course my first Pokemon would dislike me from day one. Most people were the same way. I pulled out my Pokedex, flipping it open. Its screen blinked, then hummed a little as the device came to life.

It immediately pulled up with the image of Cranidos on the top screen, and a touch-pad keyboard on the bottom. It was clearly asking me to put in some information on the Pokemon. For lack of a better idea, I put in the information the game guidebook had given me. It accepted it, then the top screen flashed a message. '**WOULD YOU LIKE TO NICKNAME THIS POKEMON?**' The bottom screen had the 'Yes' and 'No' options. I tapped yes, only to realize I didn't have a clue what to name this Cranidos. It couldn't just be something I threw off the top of my head – after all, this was my first REAL Pokemon.

After almost two minutes of thought, I typed in, 'Credere'. If Google Translate was accurate, the word Credere was Latin for trust. I was definitely putting my trust in this Pokemon in a lot of areas, so I figured the name was fitting. The Pokedex's dual screens darkened for a moment, then reappeared with some options.

At the top was 'Pokedex Registries', which obviously led to the main Pokedex function – not that I'd known there were more. The next said 'Pokemon', which I was guessing would give me the information on my current Pokemon team. Afterward were the choices 'Options', 'Trainer Info', and 'Shut Down'.

I tapped the 'Pokemon' option, which took me to the familiar screen of the original game – the bottom screen had small pokeball icons I could tap to immediately access my Pokemon's information, and on the top screen was Credere's icon, HP gauge, gender (which I learned was male), and level (currently at 5). I tapped the single present pokeball icon on the bottom screen, and I was able to check Credere's basic information. Pulling my thumb across the screen as if to work an iPhone, the screen moved to the next page, which informed me that Credere had a Hardy nature, scattered things often, was happy to eat anything, and was apparently hatched at Rowan's lab. I switched to his move screen, and I was fairly surprised by his moveset – he had the basic baby Cranidos moves of Headbutt and Leer, but alongside the two moves Dig and Fire Blast.

"Looks like you're set to defend against Grass Types, huh?" I asked my Pokemon, who promptly ignored me and scratched behind his horns a little. I sighed, backing out of the profile and back to the main options, where I shut my Pokedex down. I tucked it back in my pocket, kneeling down to Credere's level. "Heya, bud. We're going to be working together for a while, so I'm hoping we'll be friends." I said, reaching out a hand to let him sniff. He glared at it like he wanted to bite it, but instead sneezed on it. As I pulled it back, wiping it with mild disgust on the ground, I could swear he was laughing at me.

"Okay, you can sneeze at me now, but I'm no pushover Trainer." I announced, and that just made him snort even harder. I sighed again, scooping up his pokeball. I stared at it for a moment, mentally flicking back to N's speeches in my Black and White games. I'd always told myself if I were a real Trainer, I'd always have my Pokemon out with me; well, here was my chance. I held up the pokeball, waving it at Credere. He looked up with an expression that said, _What now?_

I dropped my arm to my side, and smiled at him a little. "While you're still giving me any attention, I was wondering if you'd rather walk around with me outside of your pokeball while we're traveling. I mean, it's up to you and all." The Cranidos perked a little, his haughty expression mellowing into surprise. Then a moment later, he bobbed his head.

"Then it's settled. You'll stay out of your pokeball whenever you want to. But if you get badly hurt or knocked out, is it okay if I put you back in so you don't get more hurt?" Again, Credere bobbed his head. "Got it."

I stood back up, storing his pokeball in my backpack. I would have to go let Dawn's mom know that I was leaving to travel myself, since I had sort of conned her earlier. I turned to start heading for Twinleaf, and Credere stayed on my heels with amazing diligence; maybe he didn't hate me so much after all. Just as I started relaxing around the little guy, he headbutted me in the side, laugh-snorting again as I toppled over. "Dude, not funny!" I complained. Again, he just laughed at me.

The rest of the trip continued in much the same manner, and I avoided the wild Pokemon by hopping the ledges. I got back to Twinleaf Town by about 2:30, and Mrs. Johanna looked relatively shocked when I walked in the door with a prehistoric dino-mon in tow.

"You went into the tall grass again, didn't you." Her words were more of a statement than a question, and I paused, nodding and immediately adding on, "I wasn't alone, though. Barry came by and I tagged along with him to get to Sandgem. Then I met Professor Rowan, and..." I waved to Credere. "Well, kinda obvious, but this happened."

Mrs. Johanna sighed almost wistfully. "And now you're going to go off adventuring, aren't you? Just like Dawn and Barry and Lucas." I nodded almost guiltily. She noticed my look, and smiled. "Oh, don't worry about it, Hannah. Just like I told Dawn, I'll be fine here alone." I smiled back, relieved. She suddenly straightened, and held her hand up in the traditional 'wait here' gesture. I did, and she left up the stairs. When she came back down, she was carrying a Town Map, if I remembered it right. She handed it to me, smiling.

"Here, take this. It should help you find your way around Sinnoh while you're out in the field." I took it, tucking it away in my backpack with the rest of my things. "Thanks, ma'am. I'll take good care of it."

"I'd prefer if you took good care of yourself – no wandering into the tall grass without that...erm..." She trailed off as she waved to Credere, unsure of his species. "Cranidos," I said quietly. She nodded. "Right. No running off without him, got it?"

I saluted to her, more than happy to honor her request. "With pleasure; I'd rather not deal with any more Starly incidents." We both laughed a little, and she ruffled my hair a bit. "Well, get out there and kick some butt. If you see Dawn, tell her that her mother said hello."

The conversation drew on like that for a little longer, but I was back out the door before 2:50. Credere yawned as we walked out – clearly I'd bored him with my conversation with Mrs. Johanna. "Oh, hush," I told him. "I won't be so boring later, I promise."

Somewhere along Route 201 the thought occurred to me that I might be partaking in a Nuzlocke challenge; frankly, that scared the bajeezus out of me, because it was possible. Recently (before I'd arrived in Sinnoh) I'd become excessively interested in the said challenge, and I had at least three games being done in Hard Mode. There was a possibility that I could be the victim of the challenge, so that made my mind up on the spot about what I would be doing for the rest of the day – level-grinding.

By the time I'd gotten to Sandgem, I'd thoroughly terrified myself, and I stopped by the Pokemart to blow my little money on Potions before heading out to Route 202. I'd only just entered the grass when a blue fox-like Pokemon lunged at me – a Shinx. Credere shot in front of me, catching the blow with his head and throwing the little Spark Pokemon against a tree. It crumpled, then shot back to its feet. Credere gave me an irritated look, and suddenly it occurred to me to make a command.

"Okay, Credere, use Headbutt!" I said, and my Cranidos performed the move instantly. I couldn't help but be thrilled; this was my first real battle. Now I knew why Barry had so eagerly interrupted me before, and I didn't blame him a bit.

The Shinx retaliated with Tackle, which hardly did a thing against my Rock Type. It looked fairly battered, despite the short amount of time it had been fighting, and yet another genius idea occurred to me; throw a pokeball and catch it! I did, and the ball sucked the littler Pokemon in with white light, as opposed to the red releasing beams. The ball rocked once, then twice, and defied my definition of Pokemon catching by locking before the third rock. I stared stupidly at the pokeball for a moment before picking it up and pulling out my Pokedex.

As soon as I flipped the device open, it showed Shinx's image with the same keypad. I put in the standard information again, and when the nickname screen appeared, I typed in 'Kira' – yes, this Shinx was a male (which was made clear by the longer fur), but so was the Trainer of one of the four Nuzlocke comics which inspired me to start my own (also called Kira). Besides, it was just a cool name.

I checked the Spark Pokemon's information – Hardy nature like Credere, quick-tempered, would happily eat anything, and one move, Tackle. I turned off the Pokedex again, putting it away and heading back for Sandgem. "Great job, Credere," I said, rubbing the smooth, almost metal-like skin on his head. He snorted again, following me back.

…...

Credere, Kira and I blew the rest of the day level-grinding, and by time night fell, the two had both reached level 10. I had never realized how long it took to raise Rock types, and all of a sudden I'd found a new respect for those Hiker dudes and the Rock-based Gym Leaders.

It turned out that Pokecenters had rooms for any nomadic Trainers to stay in for the night, so I didn't have to sleep on the dirt. That was a pleasant surprise. I was happy about it until I reached the room, and my Pokemon ran in ahead of me. They proceeded to jump onto the pillow, thus banning me from using it. I could only muster the anger to glare at them for a moment before I changed into my 'pajamas' – a large, baggy t-shirt that had once belonged to my dad, and a pair of equally baggy sweat pants.

I flopped on my bed and eventually got around to typing this. Again, I'll apologize for the crappy nature of this 'fanfiction', but I feel like it's taken off a little. I'm going to try to get to Jubilife City tomorrow, maybe get some more training done while I check around.

Hannah and crew, out.


	4. Chapter 3: Jubilife City

Turns out I'm really stuck here – I don't know why I'm still surprised. I guess I assumed I'd appear back home since my adventure's officially started, and my dreams always cut short at the good parts. I knew I was still in Sinnoh practically from the moment I woke up – Kira was kneading my stomach (with his CLAWS) and Credere had found a comfortable sleeping spot in my head.

I'd had to slip out from under my Cranidos to stand up, and apparently Kira had dug his claws in my t-shirt pretty well; regardless of any jerking he did, he was stuck hanging from my midsection like a whimpering ragdoll. I sat back down, carefully taking his claws out of my clothes, and as soon as he was off he ran to the other side of the room, now very wary of the dangers of my t-shirt.

The rest of the morning I don't clearly remember; I just spotted the time, panicked, and was out the door of the Pokecenter with my hoodie only half-on. The rest of Route 202 passed surprisingly quickly, seeing as the local Trainers weren't yet out to weigh me down.

Before I knew it, I was in Jubilife City, and that place woke me right up. The lights and activity of the place, even at this early-ish hour, were much more vibrant than they'd been pictured to be in the game. Both Credere and Kira seemed intimidated by the place, and Kira somehow managed to get on top of my backpack and in my hair for cover from the place. Credere was slightly more brave, growling at everything – from about an inch behind my legs.

It took me longer than I thought to find the Trainer School, this being Sinnoh's largest city and all. I'd decided to stop here mainly for battle experience, seeing as this was a school for _Trainers_; clearly it would have some pupils wanting to battle.

When I went in, though, I met someone unexpected. Lucas was up at the blackboard, scribbling the information down on a notepad. I walked up quietly behind him (nope, not creeper-ish at all, not me) and looked at what he was writing down.

'Antidotes heal poisoning, Pecha berries have the same effect. Paralyze Heal cures paralysis, Cheri berries have same effect. Pokemon gain experience from battling other Pokemon (more experience is gained through battling other Trainers).'

It went on like that for a bit, until I eventually worked up the nerve to talk. "Uh, you're Lucas, right?" The poor kid jumped half out of his skin, and he whipped to face me.

"S-sorry, didn't mean to scare you there..." I apologized guiltily. He offered a spooked smile. "It's all right. How would you know my name, anyways?"

"I met the Professor. He gave me a Pokemon and a Pokedex, so I figured I'd get acquainted with the other local DexHolders. I've already met Barry, but I never got the chance to say hello to you or Dawn."

Lucas's smile mellowed into a real one. "Oh, I didn't know there was another person working on the Pokedex! Welcome to the crew! What's your name, anyways?"

"Hannah," I answered. "I'm probably only working on it because of Barry. I think he would've flipped out if I only got a Pokemon and no 'dex." I waved to Credere, who was still cringing behind my legs. "Meet Credere, my starter Pokemon."

Lucas's eyebrows shot up. "He gave you that one? For real?"

"Uh, yeah...is there something bad about that...?"

"No, not exactly, but that little guy was at least as important to our research as the rest of our starters."

"Piplup, Turtwig, and Chimchar, right? You've got Chimchar?"

"How'd you know?" Lucas asked, looking genuinely confused. I mentally slapped myself – I had no logical reason for knowing this...

"Barry had Turtwig, and he told me what you guys had," I replied, the lie flowing a little too easily from my mouth. Lucas seemed to consider this for a moment, but bought in. "Sounds like him. He talks a little too much, you know?"

"You're telling me," I snickered. "The kid dragged me around Sandgem, giving me the rundown on how absolutely EVERYTHING worked." Lucas just laughed.

"Well, either way, take good care of that Cranidos. He was a hassle at the lab, but he seems to have taken to you. You seem like a good Trainer, at least." Lucas said, adjusting his hat. "But since we're both here and all, how about a battle? A practice match, more or less. I'd like to see how well you've trained Crani-...Credere, I mean."

I nodded. "Uh, sure. This'll be my first Trainer battle, but I think I can do okay." _My first Trainer battle in real life,_ I mentally corrected myself. _But far from my first._ "Let's try and keep this place from getting destroyed."

"Actually, let's take this outside," Lucas said, sounding a little nervous. "Now that you brought that up, I'm not entirely sure my Pokemon can...you know, NOT trash this place." Long story short, the two of us wound up just outside the school, with Credere against his Chimchar.

It was with mild annoyance that I realized Credere had no Rock type moves at the moment, preventing him from totally overkilling that Chimchar. However, two Headbutts did the job just as well. Lucas seemed fairly surprised by this, and sent out an Abra to replace the Chimchar. Credere and I swapped incredulous looks. "Uh, Lucas, let's call it quits now. Abra doesn't learn any attack moves until it evolves at Level 16, unless you have TMs it can learn of something..."

Lucas called back his Abra back almost gratefully. "Really? Where'd you learn that?" I shrugged. "Spent most of my life learning about Pokemon. You'd be surprised what I know." Lucas nodded almost respectfully to me. "Cool. Do you know much about Type matchups?"

"Only every possible matchup for every single Pokemon," I said, realizing how conceited I sounded two seconds after I spoke. The other Trainer raised an eyebrow. "Really? What's the weak Type matchups for all the DexHolders' Pokemon?"

"Well, you have Chimchar, so you'll be weak to Dawn's Piplup. She is, in turn, weak to Barry and his Turtwig, and you have an advantage over him with Chimchar. I'm weak to both Dawn and Barry right now, and technically I have an advantage over you, if Credere knew any Rock type moves, but when your Chimchar evolves into Monferno, it'll be half Fighting type and the advantage will belong to you." I rattled off.

Both of Lucas's eyebrows shot up, giving him an almost adorable look of shock. "Okay, nice. You got me. I thought you were just bragging."

"Really? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound like that. I thought that would happen..." I apologized, facepalming. "I'm not usually like that."

Lucas shrugged. "No biggie. Well, I should probably go heal my Pokemon. It was cool meeting you; maybe we can battles again later," he suggested cheerfully. I nodded, relieved that my first battle had gone so well. "Sounds like a plan. See ya around."

We split paths, and only later did it occur to me that this was a regular occurrence in the Pokemon world; meet, battle, wave, leave. I wasn't sure if I could get used to or even vaguely comfortable with that, coming from a different sort of home and all.

I had been walking around for only about ten minutes after the battle when I was jumped by none other than the Poketch guy. "Oh? OH? You call yourself a Trainer, yet you have no Poketch?" All of a sudden I understood the whole creep factor of this guy, and I was inching away the whole time he spoke.

After he finished, I made off for the clowns; I mean, creepy as this guy was, a Poketch could really help me out. Naturally I got all the questions right (seeing as I've answered them eighty-something times...) and I made my way back to the Poketch man.

He eagerly counted my coupons with his own Poketch, which I considered pointless, and he handed me a brand-spanking-new Poketch of my own. Its strap was magnetic, apparently – I started to put it on and the two ends snapped together instantly. Kira finally poked out from behind my hair to observe my new contraption, lashing out a paw at it.

"Kira, no. You cannot kill the Poketch," I told him, walking off. I tried to go to the GTS before being sharply reminded that I couldn't without a badge. Mixed emotions resulted; Roark was easily my favorite Gym Leader, even though my top region was Unova. Sure, it would be pretty awesome to meet the guy, but I'd probably screw up something or another and wind up looking like a complete retard. The Gym would probably be a good place to get advice on how to best train Rock types, too, seeing as I'd never really worked with them in-game. And then there was the looming concept that I could be a Nuzlocker following me like some deadly shadow. All in all, I was only half-looking forward to getting to Oreburgh City.

Nothing too exciting happened for the rest of the day; mostly I explored Jubilife, getting acquainted with the layout of the city for return visits, and I caught every Pokemon I could find in the nearby areas (Bidoof, Kricketot, Abra, and Starly). I stored them in the PC for the time being, not really planning to use them on my team at the moment. I mean, if I had the Pokedex, I might as well do all I could to fill it. Other than that, I have nothing left to say about today's events.

Hannah, out.


	5. Chapter 4: Oreburgh City

It's been two days since my last update, so I apologize for that, but there was nothing much to say. I've just been grinding and battling the local Trainers, and so far both Credere and Kira are up to Level 12. I decided to not put off going to Oreburgh any longer, so off I went this morning.

Yeah, like it'd be that easy. I got jumped by Barry as soon as I headed out for 203. Well, not exactly jumped – more like plowed over. "Oh, sorry, Hannah!" he apologized rapidly, as I was getting back to my feet. "S'okay," I grumbled. "I just wasn't expecting it."

"Guess what? I got a Gym badge from the Gym in Oreburgh! It was really easy; my Turtwig's just the best at battling!"

"I'll bet," I answered, checking my bag to see if I'd damaged my laptop. I only half-listened to his eager ranting up until the point he said, "...and since we're both here, let's battle!" I flinched at the words, but nodded, turning my attention away from my bag. Credere growled softly at Barry, openly showing his dislike of the boy.

Barry tossed out a pokeball, releasing Turtwig from inside. It's hard to explain, but there was a difference in the little Pokemon; he didn't appear any different, but I could tell he'd gotten a lot stronger. I let Credere bolt forward ahead of Kira and I, and he proceeded to perform Fire Blast without any order to do so. As a result, he effectively murdered the first round of the battle – Turtwig fainted instantly.

"Credere!" I snapped, half-angry and half-panicked. "You need to wait for orders and take it easy! What's gotten into you?" He shot a disdainful look over his shoulder, sniffing at me. "Come back – Kira's taking the next round," I told him forcefully. He growled at me, staying put right where he was. "Credere, that's not a request. That's an order," I said, trying to take a more authorative tone. Maybe he wasn't listening because I was giving him too much free rein.

He turned to face me and opened his mouth, and I could see the sparks starting to form as he prepared another Fire Blast. I instantly snatched his pokeball out of my bag and tossed it at him – it his him square on the head and sucked him inside. I'll admit my heart was beating out of pace; if Credere had actually performed the move, he easily could have killed me, or at least landed me in the hospital for a few months.

Barry was watching with wide eyes. "Hannah, why did your Cranidos do that? It...it was going to attack you!" I shrugged, trying to calm myself down. "Well, I'm not entirely sure. Most of the time Pokemon only disobey if they're from trades and leveled too high, but as far as I know Credere isn't traded..."

The other Trainer lit up. "Oh, right! I bet if you get Oreburgh's Gym badge, your Cranidos will listen to you again!" I shrugged again, but this was the most likely solution. Now I really didn't have a choice but to battle Roark if I wanted to keep my limbs.

"Good plan, dude. But it's mid-battle right now...let's keep going?" I suggested, and he looked at me with confusion for a second before remembering and nodding. "Oh, right! Go, Starly!"

I managed a smile as he sent out the Starly he'd caught in front of me; I hadn't really expected him to keep it on his team. Kira hopped down from my shoulder (he now had a habit of hanging out up there) and took a battle stance in front of the bird Pokemon.

"Starly, Quick Attack!" Barry demanded, and the Starly shot forward with such agility that I could hardly even see it until it slammed into Kira. The Shinx let out a howl, but obediently waited for my order. "Tackle, Kira!" I told him, and he did, smashing his head into the avian Pokemon's stomach.

"Quick Attack again, Starly!"

"Kira, Tackle it when it's about to hit you! You'll do more damage that way!" I half-shouted. Kira tensed and waited, and the second before Starly hit, he lunged at it, using its own momentum to hurt it more. Judging from the way Kira reeled afterward, the extra force had some recoil, but he shook it off, glaring at the Starly some more.

The bird was still standing, though it clearly was not in the best of shape. "No way, Hannah! You're not going to win; this is where we hit our stride!"

"If you say so! Kira, Tackle again!" My Shinx shot at the Starly before it could react, knocking it out. Barry looked stunned. "Well, Barry, I'm pretty sure I hit my stride before you did," I commented idly, waving Kira back to me.

"Do you mean to say...I lost? No way! It's not possible!" he complained, recalling Starly. "But I've got a badge..."

"Badges aren't a perfect measure of strength, Barry. I've been waiting and training so I can blow through the first Gym easily." I told him, helping Kira back up to my shoulder. Barry stayed silent for a moment longer, then started to hand me prize money.

"Dude. No. Keep that." I said, gently pushing it back at him. His expression switched to confusion immediately. "But you won the battle."

"Yeah, but I don't need the money. I'm fine." Barry shrugged after this comment, and put it away. We chatted for a bit after that (well, it was fairly one-sided, since Barry was doing all the mouth-running) and eventually split. Route 203 was traversed pretty fast, considering its length. Either way, twenty minutes had still passed by the time I reached Oreburgh Gate.

I went in and was quickly stopped by a Hiker. "You're a new Trainer, aren't you?" he questioned. I blinked, a little surprised by his perceptiveness. "Haha...I can tell from the look on your face. You've got the awkward aura of a beginner. Don't worry about it, you'll get better. Here, take this; it should help you out, as a fellow friend to Pokemon."

He handed me the HM06, and all of a sudden I remembered this event from the game. I took it and put it in my backpack, smiling. "Thanks, sir!" He smiled, and let me go on my way. There were two other Trainers present in the path, but they were quickly defeated (even though Credere was getting steadily less obedient).

I was kind of nervous when I got out of the cave and into Oreburgh City – I would be having my first Gym battle within two or three days, whether I won or lost. I started down the steps and was yet again stopped, this time by a kid in shorts; Youngster Trainer, most likely.

"Hey, if you don't have any Gym Badges, other Trainers will look down on you like you're a total noob, right? So come on, I'll show you where the Gym is."

I followed the kid to avoid being rude, and he halted in front of its doors. "Here it is!" he said, waving to it before he walked back to where he had been. I pushed the doors open, only to find the Gym dark – nobody was present. "Of course," I muttered. "I got here late." I checked the Gym statues near the front, and found two names engraved on each – Barry and Dawn, in that order. I'd gotten here before Lucas, at least.

I left the Gym, instantly heading for the mines; where else would Roark be? I found it quickly by the guidance of some of the Oreburgh residents, and I was slightly disappointed with the appearance of the mines. Everything else in Sinnoh had seemed so much more vivid than they'd been in the games, but this place seemed about the same. I glanced around, trying to find the entrance to the mine, when I heard my name being called.

"Hey, Hannah! How'd you get here before me?" I mentally facepalmed; there was Lucas. Any chance of my getting the badge before him now seemed to be spiraling down the drain. I slowly turned, seeing him bolt up to me. "I wanted to challenge the Gym Leader, but he isn't in his Gym. Do you know where I can find him?"

I sighed, nodding. "Yep. C'mon, I'll take you to him, once I find the darn mine entrance..." I checked around, and Lucas was actually pretty helpful in finding the entrance and pretty much everything else around the mine.

By time we actually found the way into the mine, I was no longer leading, but following him around like an aimless puppy. He led the way down into it, and I was a little surprised by how well-lit it was. Sure, it was definitely darker than it was outside, but it wasn't pitch black.

"We should probably train while we look around...we don't know how big this place is, and it could help us learn the way..." Lucas pointed out, sounding nervous. I shrugged. "Sure. Let's split. Whoever finds Roark first get first dibs on battling him."

"You're on!" Lucas said, and he bolted off. I watched him go, and as soon as he was gone I took out Credere's pokeball again. "Okay, dude, please don't kill me..."

The Cranidos appeared in front of me with a displeased expression, and I could just tell what he was thinking; _We had a deal, jerk._

"Credere, I'm sorry, but you would have hurt me if I didn't do that. Please don't be mad at me." The Cranidos glared some more, and started off down a tunnel opposite to the one Lucas had taken. I followed, and soon found that the mines were a heck of a lot larger in real life than in the game. We'd both gotten pretty lost before half an hour had passed; but on the bright side, we'd trained a lot (despite even more disobedience).

I had been thinking unusually negative thoughts when we were jumped by yet another Geodude. Credere dashed at it, trying to Headbutt it into the wall. It dodged, and Credere rammed into the dusty wall instead. Dust floated down from the ceiling from the force of the impact, and the lightbulb overhead rattled unnervingly.

"Credere, care-" My warning was interrupted as he charged at the Geodude again, and it hopped out of the way. This time Credere snapped a support beam, resulting in more dust and a few clumps of dirt. "Credere!" I snapped, trying to get his attention.

He ignored me, still lividly pursuing the Geodude, who provoked him into accidentally smashing two more beams. The tunnel's walls rumbled dangerously, and the last thing I remembered was my sight being blocked by an onslaught of falling earth.


	6. Chapter 5: In Which I'm Dug Up

"...tunnel collapse on the upper level...kid buried...get everybody...dig them out!"

It didn't take me too long to come to, and when I did, I was surprised to find that I could breathe at all. The air was thick and dust-choked, but breathable. There was also a lot of weight on my back, probably the rocks from above. I'd gotten lucky, obviously. However, I was pinned where I was (not to mention scared senseless).

I could hear some shuffling nearby, and a tortured yowl. "Kira!" I snapped. The howling continued; well, as painful as it was to listen, I knew he was at least alive and breathing. I couldn't hear anything indicating Credere's presence, though, and that scared me.

"Credere! Credere, buddy, are you out there?" I spat, trying not to cough from the dust. Something shifted on top of me, and if I could have jumped, I would've. "Credere, is that you?"

"Craan..." was the annoyed, strained response.

"Dude, what are you doing up there? You could have-" I fell silent; there honestly wasn't much Credere could have done to himself. It then occurred to me that Credere might be the reason I wasn't smothered – he was arched over me, and the position left some pockets of air around.

The distant shuffling turned into loud scraping, and soon tiny streams of light were making their way into our prison. "Found them!" a sharp, young voice said. The dust was scraped away more carefully now, and I pulled an arm out from under myself to push it away as well.

Pretty soon I was able to kick my way out of the dirt, and I let Credere slip off my back before I sat up. I yanked off my dirt-covered glasses, wiping them down as I listened to the people nearby. I turned to look at them, half-blind, and I saw smudges of gray, red, yellow, along with the sharp, clearer lights of heavy-duty helmets.

I slipped my glasses back on, and everything cleared up; in front of me was a painfully familiar young Leader and two Workers. Behind them were several other Workers, and Lucas. All had a look of immense concern on their faces. Humiliated, I whipped to face Credere, running my fingertips over his head and back. "You're okay, right, bud?"

He nodded wearily at me, and I turned back to Roark and the Workers. "Thanks for getting us out of there. I swear, it was an acc-" A loud yowl sounded again, and I spun towards the mound of dirt I'd been freed from, scooping madly through it. "KIRA'S STILL IN THERE!"

Credere started Headbutting the mound, exhausted as he was, and a few seconds later Roark and the Workers were at my side, digging through the mess as well. Pretty soon I pulled a blue-and-brown furred mess out of the pile, hugging it like my life depended on it. "I'm sorry, Kira, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I stammered, trying to brush the grime out of his fur with my fingers.

Someone cleared their throat next to me, and I slowly turned to look at Roark, guilt obviously written all over my face. He didn't look upset, though; just concerned and a little frustrated. "First off, are you all right?" he asked.

I nodded quickly, and Credere came over to flop beside me, panting with his head in my lap. Roark looked down at the Pokemon for a second, smiling, before he looked back at me. "Second, what caused that cave-in? Do you know?"

"Three support beams. Credere – uh, my Cranidos here – was trying to attack a Geodude, but it made him Headbutt three support beams instead. Then it collapsed on our heads." I answered quickly. "I'm sorry, I didn-"

"No need to apologize...it was a genuine accident. But you should have had a little more control over your Pokemon," Roark pointed out, his voice taking on a stern tone. I gripped Kira tighter, making him squirm a little.

"Uh, I was actually, um, kinda looking for you here so I could get some help with that." I mumbled, feeling like an idiot. "I've been having a hard time controlling Credere, and I was, um, wondering if you knew anything about that, or if it was just that I'm not experienced enough for a Pokemon of his level to obey."

Roark looked briefly at the Cranidos, then back at me. "Let's continue this conversation outside, shall we?" He stood up, brushing himself off. The Workers slowly started dispersing back into the tunnels, until only Roark, Lucas and I were left. I got up myself, doing my best to get the dirt off of my clothes and out of my hair. Lucas bolted up to me, his expression immensely worried. "Hannah, are you absolutely sure you're okay?"

"Yep – thanks to Credere," I replied, lightly rubbing my Cranidos's head. He made a sort of rumbling growl, which I assumed was affectionate. Roark seemed mildly startled by Lucas's appearance. "Who's this?"

"That's Lucas, Professor Rowan's assistant and my fellow Pokedex Holder." I replied, running my fingers through Kira's fur again before letting him crawl up to my shoulder.

"I see." Roark replied, something like respect entering his eyes. "Well, he can come along too." He proceeded to lead us out of the mines, taking a path I didn't recognize and getting us back to the top within five minutes.

Once we were a good distance from the entrance of the mines, he turned to face me again. "Well, to answer your question. Hannah, you said your name was?" I nodded. "Okay, Hannah, here's how it seems to me. Your Cranidos trusts you, but does deem you too inexperienced to make good judgments in battle. The best way to prove yourself to him is to earn a Gym badge, so come by my Gym later. If you can win against me, then that should solve your problem. If not...well, you know how it works." Roark shrugged.

"Excuse me, Roark, but I came down to the mines looking for a battle as well. When she's done, victory or loss, may I challenge you for the Oreburgh badge?" Lucas piped up, almost timidly.

"Of course." Roark answered. "But both of you, I'm warning you now; I'm no pushover. I'd prepare for the battle ahead if I were you." He looked back at me, concern flashing across his face again. "I'll ask again, just for good measure – are you positive you'll be fine? Most cave-ins don't end as well as that one."

"Yep, I should be okay." I replied. Roark nodded, and started off back toward the urban part of Oreburgh City. I swapped looks with Lucas, the silence between us painfully awkward. "Well, uh, good luck against Roark," Lucas said, tugging at his scarf.

"Thanks. You too," I answered, glancing around the mine. "I'm going to go get some more training done outside of the mines."

"What was that he meant, by Credere not obeying?"

"Kinda obvious. He won't listen to me because, well...what Roark said." I answered sheepishly, shrugging. "I'm going to earn the badge and prove that I'm not an idiot. Though I can understand why Credere would see me as one..." I muttered, glancing down at him; he was too busy inspecting his foreclaws to notice. "I'm not exactly impressive by appearance."

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Huh. I thought you were one of those kids who didn't care about appearance. Guess I was wrong."

I looked up, almost aggressively. "I don't care how I look, but I don't want to be looked down on by my own Pokemon." Lucas shrugged, ignoring my glare. "Fine, fine. Got it. I'm going to go train some more for battling Roark; don't go caving another tunnel in on yourself again." He turned to leave, and I let him. I didn't really have anything else productive to say.

I spent a good few hours training on Route 207, and searched around the different areas nearby until I'd caught the rest of the available Pokemon; Onix, Geodude, Machop, and Zubat. I stored all four away on the PC before calling it a day and getting a room at the Pokecenter.

All in all, today was pretty 'exciting' – but I don't think I'll be heading back into the Oreburgh Mine again anytime soon. I guess this is the end of this update.

Hannah, out.


	7. Chapter 6: Falling Short

Again, I'm late with the updating, but here I am. I wasted another twenty-four hours after the cave-in training Credere and Kira for the battle with Roark. I know his Pokemon honestly aren't that strong, but Kira will do next to nothing against Rock types. Credere will have to handle most of the battle, since he can damage the type, and he has Dig (super-effective, I lucked out). But seeing as he's been so uncontrollable lately, this still won't be an easy task.

I'm going to spend a little more of the morning training, and if I feel confident enough after that, I'll actually challenge Roark.

…...

"Welcome to the Oreburgh Gym! I know I didn't formally introduce myself back at the mine, but I'm Roark, the Leader of this Gym! I'm but one Trainer who decided to walk proudly with Rock type Pokemon."

I listened as Roark spoke, and nodded. "And as the Gym Leader, you need to see my potential as a Pokemon Trainer." I continued, reciting his next line I remembered from the game. He looked mildly startled by my taking the words from his mouth, and it was all I could do to choke my giggles and keep a straight face.

"...Exactly. You'll need to prove the toughness of the Pokemon you have with you to earn the badge here – it's not going to be easy!" The battle commenced immediately after, as Kira sprang off my shoulder and Roark sent out his Geodude.

"Geodude, Rock Throw!" Roark commanded. I hadn't really had time to get my strategy together (I tend to come up with those on the spot), so I told Kira to use Leer. This pattern repeated for three turns, and the two turns following that, Kira used Bite. The Geodude fainted.

Roark seemed surprised, calling back his worn-out Pokemon. The next Pokemon he sent out was Onix; I kept Kira in, since he was still in good shape and doing surprisingly well. Roark had his Onix use Rock Throw – if I hadn't known better, I would have assumed that was his signature move instead of Stealth Rock – and did a lot more damage than I'd expected. Kira could still hold in for a turn, so I had him use Leer again while I checked my bag. I had one Super Potion that I'd found out on Route 207. "God, I hope I don't need this later," I muttered, and I waved Kira back to me.

I sprayed the healing mixture over his fur, hoping I was doing it right. The instant I finished he leapt back forward, growling at the Onix with renewed energy.

"Okay, buddy, Bite!" I told him, and he did so. The Leer was pretty helpful; the Onix weakened considerably from the move.

"Counter with another Rock Throw, Onix!" Roark called, and the darned thing got a critical hit. Kira almost collapsed, and did hit the ground for a second before tottering back to his feet, almost lifelessly. I winced – I'd never seen him this weakened before, and I pulled out my Pokedex for a moment, taking two seconds to check Kira's HP with it; he was barely hanging in there with eight points out of thirty-nine.

I knew I'd need Credere to battle against Roark's Cranidos, regardless of how badly things ended here. All of a sudden, I understood the responsibility of being a Pokemon Trainer. Tough decisions were involved, like this one.

"K-Kira...Bite again!" I told him, and tired as he was, he did as he was told. I'd been silently praying for a critical hit, but it didn't happen. Another Rock Throw saw Kira out for the count. I reballed him, biting my lip. "Credere, please listen...now is not a good time to disobey..."

I tossed out the ball of my own Cranidos, and Roark visibly brightened; I'm not sure if it was because he knew I was on my last Pokemon, or the fact it was a Cranidos. And then he used a Potion.

I was about ready to scream. Sure, the Onix still wasn't fully healed, but it was pretty darn close. "Credere, Headbutt!" He listened to me, seeming to understand the severity of my tone, and he bashed that rock snake back down to a little over half its health.

Now having a spare turn, I quickly asked Credere to use Dig. He blinked, glancing around and pretending he hadn't noticed. _Why are you doing this now?_ I mentally yelled. The Onix used Rock Throw again, taking a considerable chunk of HP from Credere.

"Dig, please!" I found myself begging, and Credere actually did – he burrowed into the ground with amazing speed, considering he was only using his hind legs. When he popped back up, he knocked out the Onix, knocking it a good distance with the sheer speed and power of his attack.

Now Roark looked truly worried as he reballed the Onix. "You're doing pretty well. I'll admit I didn't expect you to make it past Onix," he told me, then he smirked. "But there's still no way you're going to make it past my Cranidos. We've been training together since I was young.

_Oh really,_ I mused. _Cause it's only level fourteen, and you're _still_ young, according to the residents._ I watched as he released a Pokemon that matched mine in appearance in nearly every way. However, this one held its head high, clearly proud to be serving under the Trainer it did.

"Okay, we've got this, Credere!" I said. "Use Dig!" I crossed my fingers behind my back, pleading for luck. Instead he used Headbutt, deliberately disobeying the order.

Roark's Cranidos did the same, knocking Credere's HP into the yellow area, according to the screen on my Pokedex. "C'mon, bud, just one Dig will win this!" I continued, but Credere sniffed and ignored me, even though he was hurt.

"Cranidos, Headbutt again!" Credere was still in the yellow range, but one more Headbutt would see him knocked out. "Please, Credere! Dig!" I pleaded, but he turned away from me.

This time Roark had his Cranidos use Pursuit. I held my breath, watching the numbers rapidly tick lower on the Pokedex screen, and it stopped at 1. I wasn't sure if I should cheer or pee myself, so I tried asking one more time for a Dig. Credere curled up on the ground, babying his wounds. Roark looked almost disappointed, seeing the result of my request, and he made a final order.

"Cranidos...finish it with Headbutt."

I could feel my eyes burning as I watched the opposing Cranidos unmercifully ram into the side of my own, knocking that last point off the screen. Credere went limp, and I reballed him, holding the pokeballs of both Pokemon tightly in my hands. "I'm sorry, guys...I'm so sorry...I should have trained you more."

Roark kept an eye on me, almost sympathetic, and I pulled out what of my money I had left and handed it to him. "Sorry for wasting your time," I apologized lifelessly. He looked down at the money I had held out to him, and after a moment's silence he shook his head. "You keep that. You battled very well for a Trainer of only a few days' experience. Maybe you can try again some other day."

I shot him a grateful glance and put the money away, fleeing the Gym for the Pokecenter. There I quickly had my Pokemon healed, and I let them both out of their balls. Kira gave me an almost reproachful glance at first, but hopped back up onto my shoulder. Credere gave me probably the most evil look he'd ever given me, but I could just feel that he was a little guilty, too.

I checked my Pokedex one more time; Kira was at level 15, normally the level his species would evolve into Luxio. But since I'd lost the battle, he hadn't evolved. I guess that was my fault – I should have done some more level-grinding, or bought more Potions before heading in. The result of the battle might have been different if I had. But mostly, it just came down to how much respect Credere had for my battle knowledge.

I sighed, leading the two out of the Pokecenter and out to Route 207. I would train with Kira until he was a Luxio, then I could try again.

I've been training for a long time; it's almost midnight now. I'm probably not going to sleep tonight. I doubt I could even if I wanted to. I'm going to beat that Gym...

Well, I guess I'll stop complaining now. Hannah, out, until next time.


	8. Chapter 7: First Badge Get!

Okay, before I get started, I'm just going to point this out; I've been checking reviews on this, and to **The Mocking J**, I really have no clue how my laptop came here with me. Or my other stuff, for that matter. Maybe I'll find out once I get farther on...for now, I'll work on finding that answer and getting it to you.

Please don't be insulted by the fact that taming Credere is my first priority, though. Ahaha...ha...

…...

"I'm assuming you're trying again now?" Roark asked, standing before me in the Gym with an air of confidence. His expression was mildly amused; not in an offensive way, but in a slightly doubtful way (though I suppose that could still be taken as offensive).

"Oh, yes." I replied, gripping Kira's ball already. "I'm not going to lose this time, either."

"Then let's skip the intro and get started," Roark commented, tossing out his Geodude's pokeball. The rocky Pokemon appeared quickly, appearing ready for the coming battle.

"Kira, let's do this!" I called, releasing the newly evolved Luxio. He snarled, his longer fur sparking with contained electricity. Long story short, both Geodude and Onix fell to Kira's Leers and Bites without retaining more than ten points of damage. Again, it came down to Roark's Cranidos. Instead of keeping Kira in (much against my better judgment) I recalled the Luxio and sent out Credere, who was now at level 14, in nearly all ways the perfect equivalent of his opponent.

"I'm not surprised by that choice," Roark commented idly. I shrugged in response. "Me neither. Let's get this finished. Okay, bud, Headbutt!"

Credere snorted disdainfully. By this point I wasn't shocked, only annoyed. Roark's Cranidos used Headbutt itself, taking out a tiny amount of his HP. The process repeated the next turn, but this time in Credere's efforts to ignore me, he hurt himself. This combined with the next Headbutt was enough to bring his HP meter into the yellow zone.

Two more times he ignored me (forcing me to use a Potion in order to keep him from fainting), but then he followed my instruction to use Dig.

_**INSTANT OHKO.**_

I tried to keep a straight, respectful expression, but my face did not comply with my brain and I wound up gleefully giggling for a few seconds. Roark seemed shocked at first, but he shook it off pretty quickly. "Well, this is embarrassing...I went and lost to a Trainer with no badges...but hey, you won, fair and square. And you even had the nerve to come back a second time after losing the first time around."

I raised an eyebrow at these words. Did people not generally do that? Roark seemed to understand the look I was subconsciously giving him, and he answered my question without even hearing it.

"Most challengers are too discouraged by the first loss to try again, even if they are capable of winning." he said, shrugging. "It's too bad. I'd honestly like to see how much tougher some of them get. Either way, since you won the battle, you get the official Coal badge." He stepped forward, pulling a small metallic object from his pocket and placing it in my waiting hand.

I examined it for a minute; it was a simply designed, slate-colored piece of metal. Still grinning like a fool, I closed my fingers around it.

"By the way, have you heard of TMs?" he added on, sounding a little sheepish.

"Yep," I answered, finally looking up. "They're single-use machines for teaching a Pokemon the move it contains."

"Right. Well, I've got a spare one here for Stealth Rock. You can have it if you want."

Since the conversation that followed was pretty awkward (especially on my part), I'll spare myself by saying I wound up with a brand-new TM that I decided was pretty nifty.

After some more talking, I left the Gym, still gripping my first badge tightly in my hand. My next stop was Floaroma, and if it was anything like in the game, there would be some Galactic butts to kick. I was on my way out the gate after healing my Pokemon that I was stopped. Not by Barry, but by Lucas.

"Hey, Hannah!" he called, and I stopped and turned automatically. "Yeah?" He came skidding up to me (not nearly as fast or dangerously as a certain blonde), looking wired. "You got the badge!" he exclaimed. "I went to the Gym and your name's carved on the pedestal!"

"Really?" I said, doing my best to pretend I wasn't as completely thrilled as he was. "I didn't know it would be there already. Did you get the badge yet?"

"Nah, but I'm about to challenge the Leader. But that's not why I came over here. Is Credere listening yet?"

"I haven't had the chance to see yet, but I think he will be," I replied, casting a hopeful look over to the dino Pokemon at my side. He gave me a baleful look before turning away again. "...Or not." I grumbled. "But that should change once I beat Gardenia, assuming he's still a grouch."

"Who's Gardenia...?" Lucas asked, lost.

"Oh, uh...you don't know?" I returned, genuinely surprised. "She's the Gym Leader in Eterna City. She likes Grass types, hates Ghost types. That Gym should be pretty easy for you."

"Oh, okay!" He said, nodding. "Chimchar should be able to ace that one."

"I'd do some level-grinding and evolve him, though," I pointed out. "Once he becomes a dual Fire-Fighting type, he'll be as effective against Roark's Pokemon as he'll be against Credere." Lucas shrugged. "I'm going to try with him as a Chimchar. It'll be a good way to see if I can win on strategy instead of advantage."

"Well, you'd better get going, then. We're losing precious daylight, and once it's gone we never get it back." I waved a hand back to Oreburgh. "And you'll probably get to Eterna before me regardless of the situation, so take your time when you're fighting Roark. I took him too lightly the first time around and I got my butt whipped."

"Okay, thanks! See you around!" Lucas started off for the Gym, no longer running. I turned to go into the Oreburgh Gate and head back to Jubilife, but I wound up sprinting to the Pokecenter and withdrawing my Geodude first. I taught it Rock Smash and then headed for the Gate, exploring what of the lower levels I could. I found a Stardust and TM70 (Flash) while I was down there, and I caught a Psyduck while I was at it.

Not too long after I made it to Jubilife, where I deposited the Psyduck and started out for Route 204. I'd completely forgotten about the Galactic battle blocking the path until I saw it. This also happened to be when and where I met Dawn for the first time.

She and Professor Rowan were having a sort of staredown with two Galactic grunts, who appeared much stranger than they seemed in-game. Sure, nothing had changed about their uniforms, but it's a little disconcerting to see people dressed like that in real life when it's not a cosplay covention or something.

"Just give us the papers, Professor, sir, and we will refrain from causing severe harm to your associate here," I caught one saying, and in a spur-of-the-moment burst of aggression, I bolted up and kneed the offending grunt, right where it really counted. He buckled, letting out a high-pitched squeak of pain, and his partner glared at me.

"Next one to insult Dawn gets a fist to the face, too." I announced, backing up to stand beside the stunned Professor and DexHolder. The first grunt slowly recovered, straightening back up. "You've forced our hand – we'll have to use force to get those papers!"

They sent out their Pokemon; a Wurmple and Zubat, both level 9 males. I let Credere dash forward, and I shot an impatient glance at Dawn. "Well? Send out a Pokemon!" She did, releasing her Piplup next to my Cranidos.

"Okay, Credere, Headbutt on the Zubat!" I told him, and much to my surprise he obeyed. The Zubat was about to faint, but not quite there, much to my dismay. "Piplup, use Bubble on the Wurmple!" Dawn commanded beside me, and her penguin Pokemon obeyed immediately, knocking out the Bug species.

"Headbutt again, Credere!" I said, and Credere rolled his eyes at me, refusing to move an inch. I inwardly groaned – of course. I still was not good enough for King Credere. Piplup finished the battle anyway, using Tackle on the Zubat to finish it.

The grunts shot us very rude looks, and I think the one I kneed was going to flip me the bird, but his partner dragged him off before he could, saying, "We will let this pass for now, Professor, since Team Galactic is benevolent to all!"

"Benevolent, my rear," I muttered. In full honesty, I did not say 'rear', but instead something considerably more crude, so I'm not typing it here. When I looked up, I was getting some very scalding looks. Dawn was the first to reprimand me.

"Excuse me, but who are you to be defending me when I can defend myself? I don't even know who you are!"

"Hannah, another person working on the Pokedex project. I defended you because they were being jerks and I'm territorial about my friends and my friends' friends, which you are. PS, your mom told me to tell you hi."

She silenced, looking surprised. "M-my mom?"

"Yeah. I somehow wound up at Lake Verity, got torn up a little, and she took care of me for a few days. She told me to tell you hello if I saw you around." I shrugged, smiling a little nervously. "Normally I'm not that aggressive, but when people mess with my buds...well, I've got loyalty issues."

Rowan took over from there. "Well, that's still no excuse to harm them, regardless of how thoughtlessly bothersome they were being," he said, glaring in the direction they'd left.

"They were trying to steal your papers on Pokemon evolution, right? They want to try and harness the power that comes from a Pokemon's evolution, even though that's a really stupid idea."

Both Rowan and Dawn looked surprised by my knowledge. "How'd you know that?" Dawn asked.

"I know a fair bit about Galactic. Let's leave it at that." I said, shrugging. "Professor, I'm sorry about them hassling you. Keep safe when you go back to Sandgem, okay?" After a minute he nodded. "May I see you two's Pokedexes, please?"

Both of us handed over our 'dexes, one red, one black, and Rowan turned them on, scanning their contents. He handed them back shortly, giving us an approving look. "You two have been working hard to fill those pages. Keep up the good work!" With that final word of encouragement, he passed between us, headed for Route 202.

I put away my Pokedex, fingering the badge I'd put in its pocket as well as I put it away. "Well, Dawn, I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself sooner," I said, sticking my hand out as though nothing had ever happened.


	9. Chapter 8: Floaroma and Elsewhere

Five minutes of talking was all it took for the two of us to be all but best friends. It turns out Dawn was a much more serious individual than the anime and games made her out to be, but she kept the confidence and motivation the Pokemon company had attributed to her. We wound up traversing Route 204 together, chatting it up the whole way.

On a less social note, I caught a Budew and found several items between the Ravaged Path and Floaroma; an Antidote, Awakening, TM09 Bullet Seed, and TM34 Rock Tomb. And while I was whipping the local Route Trainers with Dawn, Credere leveled up, forgot Focus Energy, and learned Take Down. I was not entirely thrilled with this, since I like to avoid the backlash moves, but it would be fine until further notice.

"Well, there's Floaroma Town," Dawn announced, her voice somewhat awed, waving a hand to the small rural town. I was surprised to see such an undeveloped area near Sinnoh's biggest city, but I was even more surprised by the flowers. Oh, wow, the flowers; now _those_ were something else.

Random imagery time! Stop right now and imagine a fireworks show, a sea of long grass, and every one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen in the world. Now slap those together and imagine a huge town of flowers that makes you think of all of those things. Now, I am not really an outdoorsy, flowery person, but if pure beauty could be incarnate in this world, this place was it. There were paths trodden down between and around the buildings, but otherwise it was a florist's paradise.

Dawn and I entered the little town and explored a little, socializing with the townsfolk before meeting back up at the Pokecenter.

"Well, I'm going to go ahead to Eterna City to get the next badge. I want to see Eterna Forest, too, so I'll probably be hanging around there for a while. If you see me out there, don't be afraid to say hi!" She told me with a smile, and not too long after she took off. I dropped off my Geodude and Budew at the PC, and checked my team's stats – Credere was at level 15, and Kira level 17. I made off for the Pokemart after that, having run low of supplies. I got 9 more pokeballs, only having one left (I'm always paranoid about having no pokeballs when I find my first Shiny), a Super Potion, and a regular Potion.

While I was around town, I checked the flower shop and left with an Oran Berry, 2 Cheri Berries, and a SquirtBottle. My backpack was really starting to weigh me down – I'd have to sell some of my crap eventually, but for the time being I didn't feel like it.

With little else to do around Floaroma besides admire the flowers, I headed out to Route 205 to train. And...Lo and behold, in the middle of the road stood a familiar young girl, about seven years old. "Trainer, Trainer, please help my dad!" She sobbed. "A bunch of mean people in spacesuit costumes took him and they won't give him back!"

"Got it, kiddo. You just wait here and stay out of trouble," I said, heading towards the Valley Windworks. However, I managed to get sidetracked again. But this time it wasn't my fault. I was meandering through the tall grass looking for the three new species of Pokemon I knew would be waiting for me (okay, maybe THAT was my fault) and a Buizel shot out at me, springing onto my head and latching there, trembling like a leaf in the wind. Pursuing it was a very agitated Pachirisu, its cheeks crackling dangerously. I proceeded to capture the electric squirrel, which proved the easy part. The hard part was prying the terror-stricken water weasel off my head, and as soon as I did it clung to my torso instead.

Sighing, I decided to just deal with my new appendage, and I slipped an arm under the Pokemon to support it. I used the other to pull out my Pokedex and record Pachirisu's information. Credere shot an almost jealous look at the quivering orange creature in my arms, snorting and turning away.

"Okay, fuzzball, time to stop suffocating me, okay?" I told the Buizel, tentatively trying to pry it off again. It let out a protesting cry and dug its tiny claws into my sides, drawing an unintentional gasp from me.

"Fine." I muttered, taking another pokeball out of my bag and lightly tapping it against the Buizel. It disappeared inside, and I held out the pokeball to check the Pokemon's stats. But first, as always, it pulled up the nickname screen. After much consideration, I decided to keep the Buizel on my team (I'd need a Water type eventually) and I put in the name 'Dazzle' (kudos and cookies to those who figure out the origin of that name).

I was then allowed to access Dazzle's stats; turns out she was a level 8 female, Modest by nature like myself, strongly defiant, and her ability was Swift Swim. Her moves at the moment were Growl, Water Sport, Quick Attack, and Water Gun.

After exiting the stats page, I let Dazzle back out of her pokeball. She blinked, tilting her head as she stared me down with her chocolate-brown eyes. "Buiiii?"

"Yes?" I answered, acting as if I'd understood the question. Dazzle ran around behind me, springing onto my back and throwing her arms over my shoulders. The sudden weight almost made me topple over backwards, but I managed to catch myself. Both Credere and Kira spent the next few minutes laughing at me.

I found a Potion and caught a Shellos while I was out there, made a dash to deposit it and the Pachirisu at the Pokecenter, and bolted back out, where a grunt was guarding the entrance to the Windworks. I walked up to him, giving him my best innocent look. "Excuse me, sir, but I need to get inside the Windworks. Urgent message for Commander Mars."

The grunt gave me a very suspicious look. "You're not one of us...you're too young, and you don't have the uniform." I gave a melodramatic sigh, and one of my best annoyed faces. "Have you ever heard of the term 'undercover'? And excuse me for being short for my age!"

He hesitated, clearly unsure of whether or not to let me in. After a moment, his expression darkened. "Prove it." He sent out a Glameow, and this time my annoyed face was real. "Okay, then. Dazzle, off my back, if you'd please. Time to earn your keep."

Dazzle sprang up to face the Glameow with eagerness I hadn't expected, not after watching her performance against a much weaker wild Pokemon. "Okay, let's go! Dazzle, Water Gun!"

I had expected Dazzle to use Water Gun from her mouth, but instead what I got was something completely different. She raised her paws, and water came straight up out of the ground to surround them. She put them together, and snapped her arms toward the Glameow. The water shot at it, blowing the feline back a good few feet. Now there was something the anime hadn't had even close to right.

The Glameow got back to all four paws, hissing angrily. Dazzle just glared at it, tensed and waiting for her next order. "Water Gun again!" I told her, wanting to see it again. Dazzle performed the move before the Glameow had a chance to strike back, but when it did it dealt a lot of damage.

Dazzle teetered a little but stayed up. I whipped out my Pokedex, quickly navigating to her information page. That move alone had put her down almost to half her HP – the bar was still green, but it wouldn't be for long.

"Water Gun one more time, Dazzle!"

"Glameow, Faint Attack!"

The Glameow seemed to disappear into thin air, and Dazzle's attack passed through the empty space uselessly. The feline reappeared next to Dazzle as it slammed into her and bolted back in front of its owner. Dazzle dropped to all fours, panting hard. I pulled the Potion I'd found earlier out of my backpack and used it, instantly reviving all the Pokemon's lost energy.

She shot back up on her hind paws, using Water Gun another time. The Glameow fainted, and the Grunt reballed it, but he just smirked. "That proved it. You're not one of us. I've got the key for the Windworks, and the only other one is with my cohorts! If I lock you out, I'm not the loser anymore!"

He bolted in the door, slammed it, and locked it. I lazily watched him do it; I knew where to find the other grunts, and I could have them whipped within a few minutes. I was about to head back to Floaroma to kick some butt when I heard my only warning signal; fast, hard steps behind me. I jumped to the side, Dazzle yelping in surprise from her piggyback position, as Barry came darting through. He skidded up to the door, shoving a key into the lock. He started inside, then backed up, shooting me an impatient look. "Well, come on, slowpoke!"


	10. Chapter 9: Nothing Productive Occurs

The grunts in the Windworks were disposed of quickly, though one did manage to knock out Dazzle and force me to and back from Floaroma again to heal her. Barry had clearly been training, too; his team now consisted of a level 18 Grotle, level 16 Staravia, and level 14 Buizel, all males.

However, when it came down to who battled Mars, Barry unintentionally left it to me for one reason. His whole team had been poisoned by one of the previous grunts, and he needed to run for the Pokecenter to heal them. He also didn't really know there was a Galactic Commander to be battled, so he took off like a bullet from a gun, as always.

I made my way to the back of the Works, and just as I was about to call her for a battle, I got a very mean-spirited idea. I've read one of the books of the Diamond-Pearl manga that followed Hareta, and it was the one where I learned that he confused Mars' name to be Mabs. It annoyed the bajeezus out of her there, so why couldn't I use that now?

Dazzle whined on my back, a little worried about my sudden pause. I snapped out of my evil mindset and started up to the red-haired admin. "Mars?" I questioned, keeping a tone of mild respect.

"Oh, hello there, little Rattata. It's you who's been making a mess out of our operations here, isn't it?" Mars replied, her voice sweet as poison.

"Yep, me and my bud. But thing is, we really don't want you people here causing trouble. You're scaring the local residents and Pokemon, so I'd appreciate it if you and your troops here would buzz off." I replied, and both Credere and Kira snarled beside me as if to enforce my point. Dazzle just kept clinging to my back, watching the scene unfold.

Mars smiled coyly. "How about we make a deal, little Rattata? Say we battle. If I win, you and your friend leave. If you win, Team Galactic will leave."

"Deal," I said instantly, rolling my shoulders. Dazzle took this as a sign to get off – which it was – and hopped down in front of me, poised for more fighting. Mars sent out a Zubat, which was finished in a matter of three turns with Water Gun (somehow Dazzle could pull water from even linoleum). Mars scowled at me, reballing it and sending out her signature Pokemon – Purugly.

I waved Dazzle back, not wanting to risk her getting hurt. "Okay, Credere, please don't hate me now," I said, and he lazily sauntered forward.

The next few rounds consisted of disobedience, the occasional Headbutt, and several hardly effective Scratch and Faint Attack moves from the Purugly. At one point Credere decided to use Take Down, which shoved his HP bar down into the red area, which provoked me into wasting my only Super Potion. After that, though, he KO'd the Purugly.

Mars, in short, did NOT look very happy. "Very well, then. We did have a deal," she grumbled. Two seconds later my vision was totally obscured by some sort of smoke bomb, and when it cleared all the Galactic grunts were gone.

A man emerged, coughing, from the dissipating smoke. I approached him quickly, a little concerned. "Did they work you too hard?"

"Not too bad..." he answered, straightening back up. "Thanks for driving them off, though." Suddenly I heard not one, but two sets of running feet behind me. I wasn't sure which way to jump, so I just cringed on the spot. Barry and the little girl came bolting up, and the girl immediately tackled her father. "DADDY!"

Barry glanced around anxiously, searching for the Galactic grunts. "Where'd they go? Didja see them, Hannah?"

"Yeah...while you were out healing your team, I sorta took on the last of them. I would have waited for you, but we'd kinda ticked them off and I didn't want to risk anything."

Barry looked a little pouty about this, but the expression quickly faded. "True. We got rid of them and the girl got her dad back, and that's what counts."

"That just won you a fist-bump, dude," I said, holding up my fist. He tapped his own to it, and I glanced to the father and daughter. The girl was giggling and making comments about her stinky daddy, and I just smiled, watching them.

To be brutally honest to myself and anyone reading this, I'm always kinda touchy about father-daughter stuff when it gets this emotional. I was an illegitimate birth, and my dad ditched my mom as soon as he found out she was pregnant. I see him once every three or five years, and I have a great stepdad, but sometimes I wish my biological dad had stayed around.

"Well, since things look cleared up here, I'm going to Eterna City to get the next badge," Barry announced. "Five seconds till I dash! Five! Four! ThreetwooneZERO!" He was off again, leaving me standing there stupidly with a Buizel on my back and a Luxio and Cranidos standing at my sides.

After another minute, I left myself and checked the stats of my Pokemon. Dazzle was at level 11 already, and at some point had forgotten Growl and replaced it with Pursuit. Credere was level 16, and Kira was still at level 17.

I decided to level-grind with the other two until they reached level 17 as well, which blew the rest of my day on Route 205. I found an X Attack, Antidote (thank you God!), pokeball, and Repel, along with an Oran and Pecha Berry. Dazzle forgot Water Sport and learned Swift as well. After they all hit level 17, I headed back to Floaroma and restocked my stuff; the final result was one of all the status healers (except there were five Antidotes), five Potions, five Super Potions, and ten pokeballs.

It was still only about six by that time, which left me with plenty of free time. I spent a lot of it typing up most of the chapters you've read so far. The rest I spent trying to find Lucas so I could have a rematch with him.

I know this is a painfully short chapter, but there's nothing else interesting to say. And just so you people out there know, if there's anything you want me to check for you people while I'm out here, just drop the question or request in the review thingamajigger. I mean, why not make the most of the situation?

Okay, I'll shut up for real and hopefully have something interesting happen in the next chapter. Hannah, out.


	11. Chapter 10: Eterna Forest

(Guys, I'm sorry a thousand times over. I meant to post this a long time ago, but my laptop crashed and I had to figure out how to fix it. Seeing as I never heard about where to find a mechanic in Sinnoh...really could have used that information.)

Eterna Forest didn't have anything on Floaroma Town, but it was still a very pretty, peaceful place. That's the first thing I noticed as soon as I got inside; that, and the presence of a young woman with braided dark green hair. She seemed anxious as she looked around, and I quickly identified her as Cheryl.

She spotted me passing quickly, and waved, trying to get my attention. I stopped and headed over, returning her tentative smile. "Are you going to be passing through Eterna Forest?" she asked softly. I was inwardly surprised by her timid nature. I'd always made her out to be a little bolder than that, but she was acting like I did when I went to school or social meetings back at home.

"Yep. You can come with me, if you want. Since Team Galactic's running rampant and all, it would probably be safer to travel in numbers." I replied, again taking the words out of someone else's mouth. However, she didn't seem quite as surprised as everyone else had been, instead brightening.

"I'm glad someone else understands my point of view. If it wouldn't be too much of a hassle, I would enjoy coming with you. I can keep your Pokemon healed along the way, too."

As a result, we wound up traveling as a duo through the forest. I can only assume I was the first of the DexHolders to come through here, as Cheryl probably would have tagged along with one of them had they come through earlier.

While I was out there, I caught a Buneary, Wurmple, Cascoon, and a very obnoxious Misdreavus. She refused to be caught no matter what, and by time I heard her pokeball lock, I had only one other pokeball and a Great ball left. For the hassle she put up, I decided to grant her a nickname, Maya, but I'd keep her in the PC; I hadn't really decided whether or not I'd keep her on the main team. I also found a ton of stuff lying around, but I'll spare you the details.

Cheryl and I made small talk pretty much the whole way through the forest, and pretty soon we were buddies, even though she was probably 23 or so. But if that was the case, why would she want to tag along with a teenager...?

That nagged on me pretty much the whole time until I got the nerve to ask how old she was, mumbling the inquiry as fast as I could. Cheryl seemed confused for a minute until she deciphered what I'd said.

"Me? Well, I'm 19...I'm going to be twenty this fall." she answered, apparently unoffended by the nature of the question. "But since I told you, you've got to tell me how old you are."

I eventually stopped cringing and stood up straight again. "Fourteen." Then the last bit of Cheryl's answer hit me. "Wait, this fall? It's not fall right now?" I asked, disbelieving. The Sinnoh weather was pretty cold – not unbearably cold, but definitely colder than I'd prefer to be in.

"No, silly. It's still mid-summer," Cheryl replied, laughing a little. "Can't you tell from how warm it is?"

My jaw dropped, and I shook my head. We stayed on the subject for a while, discussing the merits of hot and cold and who came from where, pausing the conversation when we had to battle. It was actually pretty fun doing all the battles as Multi Battles; it was nice having someone else nearby to help out and enjoy the battling with. Her Chansey was surprisingly tough for a healing-based Pokemon.

By time we got to the end of the forest (I'll admit I was slightly abusing her healing hospitality by level-grinding a little) Credere was level 18, and both Kira and Dazzle were level 20. I wasn't really looking forward to splitting paths, because Cheryl was a great person to be around. (Guys, give her more love, seriously, she's the best.)

"Look at that..." Cheryl's voice caught my attention – she hadn't yet noticed the exit, but she had taken notice of the Old Chateau. "I wonder how long it's been there."

"Yep. That's the Old Chateau. It's been there for some time. And you want to know a secret?"

"What?"

"Between eight at night and four in the morning, a Legendary Pokemon is hiding in the TV in one of the back rooms."

Cheryl regarded me with amusement. "That's a pretty cool rumor. Wouldn't it be neat if there actually was one back there?"

"There is. I've seen it for myself." I pressed. "It's called Rotom, and it's an Electric and Ghost type Pokemon. It's made out of plasma, and it likes messing with electronics. I think it's the only Legendary that can breed, too, if you don't count Manaphy and Phione."

Now Cheryl looked confused. "What's a Manaphy? And a Phione?" I hesitated. "Well, I'm not going to start a lecture now, but I promise you that Rotom is back there. If I ever see you again after this, I'll make sure to show it to you because I'm going to catch it."

"Good luck!" Cheryl replied cheerfully. Then, glancing around, her expression faded back into worry. "Shouldn't we be through by now?"

"Yep. The exit is just over there." I said, walking in its direction and pausing a few feet away. Cheryl followed me, and caught sight of where the trees thinned out into an opening. "Oh! There's the exit!"

"Yep!" I said again. Then I tentatively added, "Where are you going, anyways?"

"To see Gardenia. We were good friends in school, so we try to keep in touch," she replied, smiling again.

"Can I come say hi if I see you around?"

"Absolutely. Thanks for helping me through the forest; I doubt I could have done it alone." She waved, and a few moments later Cheryl was gone. Kira purred beside me, and I jumped. My Pokemon had been unusually quiet for the whole trip, and for a while I'd forgotten they were there.

"Yeah, I like her too. She's a sweet person," I replied, again pretending I knew what my Pokemon were saying.

"Bui!" Dazzle agreed, tightening her grip on my shoulders. Credere just growled a little; I'm not really sure if it was friendly or aggressive. Either way, we all spent a little more time checking around Eterna Forest before calling it a day. I stayed awake just long enough to get into Eterna City, blearily find the Pokemon Center, and crash in one of the rooms. Just a warning to any of you possible other Sinnoh-goers out there, Eterna Forest is a lot bigger and more time-consuming than it seems.

Hannah, out for now.


	12. Chapter 11: Some Familiar Encounters

Most of the morning was gone by the time I gathered the strength of will to open my eyes; ten thirty, I think the clock said. Though Credere and Kira were already up and apparently talking, Dazzle was just as heavy a sleeper as me. She was pressed up against my empty stomach like a snoring boulder, and when I tried to get up and get ready to go, she snarled in her sleep until I got back down.

Guys, for the record, she's the reason the morning was wasted. Honest. I'm blaming her.

Either way, I was 'banned' from leaving until eleven forty-five, when Dazzle finally let me go and change out of my baggy sleeping clothes.

We were out of the Pokecenter before twelve, amazingly, and the morning was still fairly fresh. And then it occurred to me – the statue of the legendary Pokemon. It was here, right? And depending on the inscription (or several), I could find out exactly what form of Sinnoh I'd landed myself in.

Thus, I took off running, Dazzle clinging to my back as usual, and Credere and Kira following behind. Before long I could see the statue, still a distance away, but it took on the definite form of Palkia. In the games, regardless of the mascot legendary, the statue would always look like Dialga, but let me tell you, that statue looked pretty sweet with the controller of space portrayed instead (I may or may not be biased).

As I drew closer, I could see a woman clad in black standing before it, quietly examining the statue. It took me about two seconds to identify her as Cynthia, and another two to remember what she was doing there. I stopped running, trying to approach the statue without drawing the attention of the Champion. I did pretty well creeping around the reverse side of the statue, examining it all the way. But then my curiosity about the inscription plate kicked me to the front of the stone object. I knelt down in front of it, trying to pull the words from the metal plate without being noticed.

_...birth of Pal...creator of parallel dimensions...Alive, yet not alive...rifts in space...To arrive in the same univer...the blessing of Pal..._

Stupid illegible writing. 'Pal' was clearly the beginning of the worn-off word Palkia, and 'univer' – what else could it be but universe? I remembered reading the rest of the plaque at one of the Galactic buildings, probably the one in Veilstone, but for the life of me I couldn't remember exactly what the rest was.

"Checking out the statue, are you?" I heard Cynthia say. She sounded just like I expected; with a voice that must've been stolen from some goddess or something. _And Captain Obvious strikes again. _"Yep," I answered simply. "Palkia's a pretty cool Pokemon."

"Indeed." Cynthia replied. I stood up to look her in the face, and failed; she still stood a few inches taller than me. I glanced back over at the statue, and got a sneaky idea; maybe I could do some cheating. I pulled out my Pokedex, facing it towards the statue. It stayed silent, not recognizing the Pokemon. _Okay, cheat-proof. Looks like I can't use the Soulsilver guide book for this crap either._

"Oh, you're working on the Pokedex...seeing that brings back some memories." Cynthia commented cheerfully. I nodded. "Yep. Did you work on it for Professor Rowan, too?" I asked. That question had actually been on my mind for some time, ever since Cynthia said that in-game.

"Actually, no, but I did help him with his research for a while when I was younger." she replied. "He hadn't yet met the Professor who helped him develop the Pokedex, but he was still hard at work gathering information. By the way, my name is Cynthia. I'm a Pokemon Trainer like you," she said, gesturing to the three Pokemon with me.

I smiled. "I'm Hannah. My Cranidos here is Credere, the Luxio is Kira, and the Buizel is Dazzle." Dazzle raised a paw to wave, and Cynthia waved back. "I'm trying to complete the Pokedex and maybe beat you in a battle sometime, since you're the Champion and all."

"Oh, really? Why do you want to be the Champion?" Cynthia asked curiously, and suddenly I found myself wondering if she'd been talking with Alder recently. _Well, let's see – in all those sucked-into-game fanfics, becoming the Champion signaled going home._ "Well, I wouldn't say I'm in it for the Championship; too much publicity. I just want proof that I've accomplished something big in my life." I answered instead, shrugging. "Becoming Champion would leave my mark in the world," _This world __at least,_ "So I guess I just don't want to be forgotten."

The real Champion nodded. "That's a good reason; better than some I've heard. Most people are just in it for the fame."

"Uh-uh, not me, nope." I said, shaking my head quickly. "I don't do well with crowds." Dazzle snickered at me, and I shot her a sideways _'you hush'_ look.

"Well, I wish you luck reaching those goals." Cynthia said, holding out a disc I recognized as a TM. "Here, take this; it should help you on your travels." I took it, examining it – written faintly on its side was CUT. I looked up to thank Cynthia for the gift, but she was already walking away.

We checked around the town a little more, and found several interesting places. There was an herbal medicine shop, the Name-Rating services (which I had no desire to use), the Pokemon Gym (to be challenged later) and the Underground Man's house. I've always been a sucker for the secret bases, so the first place I went to was the Underground Man's house.

There were a few people already in there, and I recognized one of them, sadly. Roark was present, talking with the old geezer I assumed was the Underground Man (no offense, geezers of the world!).

I tried to quietly back out of the place, but the old man noticed me. "Hello, there!" he called. His voice was worn and heavily accented, but kind. "Uh...hi," I managed back. When Roark followed the older man's gaze, he seemed mildly surprised to see me.

"You've gotten here pretty fast," he commented. I wasn't sure if I should be insulted by his lack of faith or flattered by my apparent speed. I wound up picking the former.

"What, you doubted I would get here quickly? I could have been here two days ago, but I decided to train instead," I informed him. I was inwardly shocked by myself; where was this nerve coming from? Sure, I get really chatty when I get defensive, but when facing up against a senior I either tremble the whole time or stutter-mumble so quietly even I can't hear it.

Roark just raised an eyebrow at me – cue feelings of idiocy taking over. He opened his mouth to say something in response when the old man intervened. "Say, kiddo, have you ever been to the Sinnoh Underground?" he asked, still smiling his benevolent smile. I turned my attention to him and shook my head.

"Would you like to go?" This time I just nodded. The old man took a box and a shovel off a nearby desk and handed them to me, declaring, "Then you should!"

Now, I assumed the shovel would be light, and I took it with one hand and too strong of a grip. As soon as the Underground Man let go of it, it dragged my arm half out of the socket and the rest of me with it before I caught myself. I'm pretty sure I pulled a muscle or something because even when I switched the shovel to my other hand alongside the box, my wrist still burned like fury. It only pissed me off more when I heard Roark chuckling.

I heaved the shovel over my shoulders, which made the weight nearly nonexistent; my shoulders are pretty tough from lugging eighteen or so textbooks to and from school on a daily basis. "I'd love to go, sir, but I'm not sure how to get there..." I said timidly. In-game the character would just spin in circles and disappear into a black hole, but I really doubted that was how this worked.

The old man looked at Roark, whose eyes got wide. "Hey, I've got Gym duties to attend..."

"Oh, I'm sure you can put them off for a few minutes to help a novice learn the ropes, can't you, sonny?" the old man said, his expression still kind, but I could tell there was something else there...mischief? Roark looked like he really wanted to object, but instead he stiffly nodded. And then I remembered – last time I'd wasted a few hours on Bulbapedia (don't judge!) I'd seen that the Underground Man was listed as Roark's grandfather. That was probably the only reason he was agreeing to the request, but now I had ammo if he was being a jerk. Muahaha.

Roark headed for the door, waving for me to follow. "Come on," he said, sounding peeved. He led me to the edge of town, where three large tubes were sticking about two feet out of the ground. They were roughly three feet in diameter. Roark approached the middle one, kicking it with the side of his foot, and the steel cover of the tube lifted. I came over and looked at the inside – the tube went a long way down, judging from the size of the tiny circle of light at the bottom. Attached to the inside of the tube was a series of ladder rungs, leading down. I took the opportunity to reball my three Pokemon, predicting what I'd have to do next.

Roark gestured to the open hole. "Go ahead. I'll be there in a second." I got in, starting to climb down. The lid above me started automatically closing as soon as my head was beneath the rim, and the last thing I heard was the metallic thud as Roark kicked another one of the tubes. Then the lid shut, sealed, and I was plunged into silence and darkness, save for the little circle of dim light beneath my feet.


	13. Chapter 12: The Sinnoh Underground

It took me a few minutes to climb to the bottom of the tunnel, and the whole time my eyes were shut as I consoled myself. "Just step down, step down, step down..." It wasn't too hard, until there was suddenly no more steps. I opened my eyes and looked down – I had reached the bottom of the tube, but beneath me was a drop. I would have to let go and just land on the ground, likely some seven feet beneath me.

"Well, crap," I muttered. After some readjusting, I got my hands on the lowest rung, and my feet dangling just a few feet over the ground. Only then did I let go. I hit the ground with a small jolt, and I glanced back up. There were three lined-up openings, but the tube still poked out of the ceiling by a few feet – probably to make getting out of them safer. Lining the top of the ceiling every few yards was a bunch of lights.

I took a moment to check my backpack for any possible damage, and then I heard the sound of another person dropping down from above. Lo and behold, there was Roark in all his annoyed glory.

"Okay, you know how this is going to work. I'm here to help you figure out how things work in here, then I'm off."

"Lead on, then." I replied, trying to counter his bad attitude with some cheer. He rolled his eyes. "But that wouldn't be a good idea until you put your hard hat on, you know. Just in case the tunnel caves in."

"Oh." I said oh-so-intelligently, and I checked my box. There was my helmet, and tucked inside it was a small sledgehammer and pickaxe, along with a small device I couldn't identify. I pulled the helmet out and replaced the mining tools before shutting the box and putting the helmet on my head, not bothering with the straps on it. "There!"

Roark nodded. "Now you're set. In the Underground..." He glanced around. "Well, you can do pretty much anything. You can dig for Spheres and Treasures, make a Secret Base, trade for goods..."

"Can you show me how to dig for the Spheres?" I asked, and Roark shrugged. "Sure, if that's what you want to do first." He pulled a dual-screened device that matched the one from my box from his pocket, pulled out an antennae from its side, and tapped the screen. It beeped in a familiar tone, and suddenly I had an 'Aha!' moment. That was the sensor from the game, where you would tap the screen and it would show you where digging spots and Traps were.

"This way," Roark announced, heading off down the hallway. I came obediently after him, on occasion glancing back to check on my Pokemon before remembering they were balled. I almost ran into Roark when he stopped, though, in front of a section of wall. "Okay, Hannah, get out those mining tools from your box," he instructed. I did so, pleased to find that they weren't nearly as heavy as the shovel (I dumped that on the floor for the time being).

"That's your sledgehammer, and that's your pickaxe, obviously. Using the sledgehammer will clear more of the rock faster, but it will damage the wall more, too. Using the pickaxe is best for detail work, and it won't destabilize the wall as quickly. You can only take so much off the wall before it will collapse, so be careful. Don't just swing everywhere." Roark said, pointing to each of my respective tools as he spoke. "So, have at it."

I certainly did have at it, with the sledgehammer first. After the first three blows, not only was my arm tired, but I saw something that was definitely not more dirt. I immediately switched to the pickaxe, determined not to damage the Fossil I'd partially uncovered, and with a few well-placed taps the Fossil was uncovered. I pulled it carefully out of the wall, brushing some of the dirt off.

Here was even more proof I was in the Pearl setting of Sinnoh – it was a Shield Fossil. I kept it in my free hand and managed to get a Yellow Shard and a Heart Scale out of the wall before it collapsed – like a mini landslide. I could have kept trying to dig for things, but now the wall wasn't solid, instead just a bunch of loose dirt. It would be really, really hard to find anything else without moving it around and away.

Roark seemed impressed. "A Fossil on your first try?" I nodded, equally shocked. "Color me surprised...I didn't expect that. You want it?" I said, holding out the Fossil. "I might break it or something."

"No, you keep that. You'd be surprised how hard it is to break those." Roark said, his voice taking on a joking tone. "But it looks like you've got the digging figured out. All that I can really show you now is how to make a Secret Base."

"I'd need a Digger Drill for that, right?"

"Yes. Check your box. You might have one in there." I checked – no dice. I held up the box, showing him its lack of a Digger Drill. He seemed kind of put out by this. "Well, I might have an extra at my Base..."

"You've got a Secret Base?" I demanded, shocked. He gave me a look that clearly stated how stupid he thought that statement was, and nodded. "Yes. How else would I know how to make one?"

"Uh..." He had me beat, so I just shut up and let him lead me through the tunnels for a little longer. After about ten minutes of walking, he stopped me. "Okay, now you are going to stand right here until I get back, understood?" he told me, using a no-nonsense tone of voice. I nodded solemnly, and he disappeared around the corner.

...You didn't really think I was going to honor that request, right? I mean, I never even knew Roark had a Secret Base, and apparently I was near it. I quietly followed him, and saw him disappear into a hole in the wall. I made a mental note of where it was and headed back to where I'd been. I'd come steal his Flag later – haha! That would be hilarious. I was still doing my best to choke my grinning when he returned, a Digger Drill in hand.

"What are you smirking at?" he asked, handing me the Drill. I shrugged. "Just remembered a funny joke, that's all."

He didn't seem to buy this, but he ignored it for the time being. "You see the switch on the side of that Drill? You flip that to turn it on, and you can use it to look for little caverns around here. They're not too uncommon, so it shouldn't be too hard to find one suitable for making a Secret Base."

"Okay, got it." I said, nodding. "You stay right here until I get back, okay?" I said, pointing at the spot of ground he was standing on. He sighed in annoyance, but nodded. Then I took off through the halls myself, remembering the turns I took so I could get back. I made sure to go far enough away that Roark at least wouldn't hear me using the drill, and I tested the wall. I got a good five feet in, but there was no cavern waiting for me, so I ran off again. This time I found myself in a dead end hallway, and I tested the Digger Drill again – this time the wall caved before I hit three feet, and I poked inside. There was a fairly spacious cave (about thirty feet by fifty) littered with large boulders. I set the Digger Drill down just inside its entrance, to mark it as mine, and I headed back to Roark at full sprint.

He was waiting right where I'd told him to – poor unsuspecting shmuck – tapping his foot. "Are you done?" he asked immediately. I nodded. "You don't have to bother with me anymore. You've got Gym duties, right?" This drew a slightly guilty look from him. "Actually, no. I lied about that."

"A grown up, lying?" I gasped melodramatically, throwing a hand over my heart. He looked peeved (is that his default expression or something?) and countered immediately. "I'm only seventeen, thanks. I can still get away with lying every once in a while."

That surprised me for real. I knew Roark was young for a Gym Leader, but I'd assumed he was at least twenty. Shows how good I am at age estimates, I suppose. "Oh." I said, sounding like an absolute genius for the second time as I dropped my hand. "Well, Gym duties or not, you can ditch me now. You've done what your gr- the Underground Man said to do."

I got a baleful look from Roark. "How did you know that?"

"Know what?" I questioned, trying to look innocent (which I unsurprisingly failed at).

"That he's my granddad."

"Well, uh, it's kind of obvious." I tried. "I doubt you would have honored his request otherwise, and you've got the same eyes, I guess."

Roark did not look pleased, but apparently it was a logical enough explanation for him to accept. "Well, I'm going to stay down here for a while longer and dig. You go do what you want." he said. I waved. "Okay. See ya! Thanks for showing me around!"

I made my way back to the tubes I'd come in through, and after a few tries at jumping with my repacked box and shovel in hand, I managed to grab onto the lowest rung and haul myself up. After a while of climbing, I made my way back up to the top, where I shoved the lid open and I got back out onto the upper level of the world. It took me a minute for my eyes to readjust to the sudden bright light, and then I released my three Pokemon.

Dazzle acted like nothing had ever happened and got right back on me for her usual piggy-back rides. Kira seemed mildly startled by his sudden containment and release, but didn't object, while Credere spent a good half hour to sulk over it, disregarding every apology I had to offer.

I did thoroughly enjoy the rest of my visit to Eterna, but I'm not going to bore you with all the details. Point is, I spent three days following there doing nothing but being lazy and hanging out with my Pokemon – heck, even Credere didn't seem to mind me too much after that 'bonding session' ended.

So, for now, Hannah out.


	14. Chapter 13: Second Badge Get!

My alarm this morning was an orange furred weasel caterwauling in my ear, joined by the assisting voices of Credere and Kira. I understood why very easily. We were all starving, so I took about two minutes to get dressed and ready before I headed out to the Pokecenter's food bar. It didn't have anything too tasty, God forbid, but my little squad and I managed to fill our stomachs.

It was day four in Eterna, and about time to challenge the second Gym. I'd wasted more than enough time here. Now that I'm on that subject...I've been in Sinnoh for 16 days. More than two weeks. I guess I'm really not going home...I'm sorry for repetitively saying that, but it's still a slap in the face for me every time I think about it. I've enjoyed the time I've had here, but I'm starting to miss my family and friends – especially my mom and best friend Madison.

Okay, I will shut up now and get on to the good stuff. When I got to the first room of the Gym, the first thing I did was check the pedestals. All three of the Sinnoh trio's names were there; I guess I shouldn't have procrastinated for so long. I straightened again and started for the door that led into the rest of the Eterna Gym, but standing in my way was Gardenia herself.

"Hiya!" she said cheerfully. I waved, slapping on a smile. "Hey. I'm-"

"Hannah! You're here to challenge the Gym, right?" Gardenia provided. I was a little weirded out.

"Uh, how do you know my name?"

"One, Cheryl told me that a kid about your size and appearance might be coming in to challenge me, and two, Roark phoned in to warn me once you beat him." she replied. I was kind of surprised – apparently I was becoming a people person. I'd have to tone down my social levels a bit, or I'd wind up taking Dawn's role as the 'protagonist'.

"Well, anyways, since you're here, I'll explain the Gym to you!" Gardenia exclaimed. "At this Gym, nobody's allowed to battle me until they beat all of the Gym Trainers. They've all hidden themselves really well, so you'll have to look for them. I'll be waiting in the back for you once they've been beaten. Am I clear?"

"Crystal," I answered. Gardenia nodded, and darted through the doorway. Have I mentioned how awesome her cape-thing is and how much I want it? No? Well, it's awesome and I want it.

And now I guess I should admit I got whooped the first time I actually went through the Gym and challenged Gardenia. This time I wasn't remarkably upset about it – only one of my team members wasn't weak to Grass Types, and his electric moves did next to nothing to the plant Pokemon. I only spent a little after that training and catching Pokemon (a Meditite and a Chingling, specifically) before healing up and charging right back in again.

When I got back in, Dazzle and Kira were level 22, and Credere was back at 20 – I don't feel comfortable raising him into the powerhouse he could be while he's still contemplating whether or not to maim and ditch me. Dazzle had swapped her Quick Attack move for Aqua Jet, which I was hoping was a good decision.

Gardenia seemed relatively surprised to see me back after my first beating, but didn't hesitate to accept my challenge. The first Pokemon she sent out was her Cherubi, just like last time. I ordered Credere forward with some caution, mentally preparing for the frustration he was about to shove in my face.

"Okay, bud, please just help me out here," I begged quietly. "Fire Blast!"

Much to my surprise, he actually listened without any contemptuous glances on the side. The huge flaming star shot at the Cherubi, dissipating before it hit the wall...revealing that the Cherubi was no longer there. I looked around in panic, certain that I'd just caused the murder of the creature, , when it dropped down from the nearby trees, giggling. I relaxed a little. Then it used Absorb, and I was tense all over again. I pulled out my Pokedex to monitor Credere's health. He was still fine, with a little more than half of his HP left, but that Cherubi was still as good as new.

"Fire Blast again!" I demanded. This time Credere just cast me a haughty look and flicked his tail dismissively. The Cherubi attacked again, knocking the bar on the Pokedex's screen well into the yellow.

"Come on!" I almost yelled. "Fire Blast!" Credere obeyed, but likely only because the Cherubi had annoyed him. After the fire attack fizzled, the Cherubi was revealed to be still standing, though clearly battered. It proceeded to use Grass Knot, and Credere hit the ground, eyes tightly shut.

I reballed him, glaring at Gardenia. Judging from her lack of a reaction, she got this a lot from pissed-off challengers.

Without any order to do so, Dazzle rushed forward, whipping her paws and drawing water as she went. She let out a fearsome cry – two seconds before she was wrapped in vines and forcefully hurled across the arena. There was a sickening cracking sound as the vines abruptly unraveled and slammed the Buizel into the wall, leaving her to fall a good eight feet after her body met the wall.

Not a single sound escaped the little Pokemon as she dropped and crumpled to the floor. Both Kira and I shrieked, and I bolted to the motionless form. She was still enough to scare me into half thinking she was dead, and a nasty cut over her eye was beginning to dribble blood. I scooped her up as carefully as my shaking arms permitted, and made my way back to where Kira remained. I was a little surprised to see that he'd taken out the Cherubi and was well on his way to finishing Gardenia's next Pokemon, a Turtwig, but I was just a little preoccupied with trying to fix Dazzle's injuries.

I started giving Kira an order, but he seemed to be doing more than fine on his own. I left him with the task of finishing the battle, and every once in a while I'd look up and start another order, only to see that Kira was already doing it.

Once I fully realized there was pretty much nothing I could do to help Dazzle other than wipe the blood from her eye, Gardenia's Roserade had been released. I turned my attention to the battle to resume my task as 'Trainer'; not that Kira actually needed any help.

Gardenia gave me a somewhat apologetic look, then made her move. "Roserade, Magical Leaf!" The Roserade waved its arms, and several glowing leaves were thrown from them. Kira simply braced himself against their impact, and bounded toward his opponent, snarling. He sank his none-too-small teeth into Roserade's arm, and despite all the flailing the Roserade did as a result, he refused to budge until he felt like it. When he did let go, he skittered a good distance away, probably expecting a counterattack that did not come. The Roserade instead halted, babying its very torn-up arm.

While it wasn't paying attention, Kira crept up again and tackled it from behind. I checked his information on the Pokedex – he hadn't even been nicked yet. The two exchanged blows for a good span of time, only drawn out by the Roserade's repetitive use of Absorb. But in the end, Kira was the one still standing, with his HP hardly dented.

I barely took the time to get my badge and check on Kira before I bolted for the Pokecenter, trying not to jostle Dazzle in my rush – which, of course, I failed at. The nurse presently at the counter (who, by the way, was not a Nurse Joy) figured out that I had a problem as soon as I burst in those doors and Dazzle passed hands without a single word, along with Credere's pokeball.

Dazzle was given back to me after almost half an hour, appearing completely fine and happy, if you ignored the bandages tightly wrapped around her left arm. She hopped off the counter, and started for my shoulders like usual, scrabbling a bit as she tried to use her apparently injured arm. I took a second to help her up before taking back Credere's ball and letting him out.

"Ma'am, what's wrong with her arm?" I asked, glancing at the nurse again. I received a long detailed explanation of what had happened and how to handle it. Basically, it boiled down to this – Dazzle had a fracture, and the bandages would have to stay for about three weeks, and I would have to change them every few days. Normally I'd only have to do it once a week, but since Dazzle was a Water-type, the bandages were ruined that much faster. This meant another drain on my ever-shrinking funds, but that would be fine. I'd just have to be really careful. I was doing fine now, for the most part. I could feed myself and my team, and that was all I really needed to spend my money on.

I decided to put a halt on Dazzle's training, to keep her from getting hurt further, but I still had to do something with my spare time. Not training would mean falling behind, falling behind would mean more injuries and no income, and no income...well, I can last a day on a Pop-Tart, but I can starve just like the rest of us. And now, stuck in Sinnoh, I didn't have my parents to fall back on if I failed.

I pulled Buneary out of the PC, taught it cut, and made off for the Old Chateau. For the next five days I was just training, and several things proceeded to occur, for better or worse.


	15. Chapter 14: Calamity Ensues

The Old Chateau was an...interesting place to stay, to say the least. It was always dead silent, aside from our own breathing and the sound of our footsteps. Occasionally we would see a Gastly or two float by and phase through a dilapidated wall, but aside from that they didn't bother us too much – at least, until my team started making noise. The days were spent level-grinding, the nights in silence. Despite how other people thought of the house, it didn't seem all that eerie to me. I had my team with me, which drove off any sense of unease that I might've harbored had I come alone.

Every so often my team and I would split up and explore on our own. It was on these occasions that I noticed the more unusual things around the house. In one of the smaller rooms of the second floor, same general area as Rotom's TV room, there was a picture hanging on the wall, painted entirely in different shades of purple. There were two kids running around in front of a house that looked like the Old Chateau in better times, and one of the kids, a boy, was looking straight out of the painting, eyes wide and his mouth slightly open in a laugh. When I stood in front of this picture and observed it directly, it was perfectly normal. When I backed up to the doorway, or averted my eyes from it, the boy's eyes glowed red. On another occasion, I was leaving a room just in time to see a young girl about five years old disappearing through another doorway, but when I pursued her, nobody was in the room.

Aside from this, we were all just training, never speaking a word aside from my few whispered warnings and commands. The level-grinding brought them all to levels I never saw in-game before Veilstone City, at least for Dazzle and Kira. I'd forgotten that Buizel evolved at level 26, since I never used them on my main team, and Dazzle quickly achieved that level while I wasn't looking. I only found out about her evolution when we regrouped that evening on the second floor's landing for our dinner of snadwiches and potato chips.

Kira made his way up to level 27 before we left, and Credere to level 20 – I didn't want to waste this beautiful, wonderful span of obedience too quickly.

But none of this was not the most prominent occurrence at the Chateau. The most prominent would have to be a Gastly. Just one out of the hundreds or thousands at the place, of course. This one Gastly decided it would be hilarious to stalk me, apparently.

On the day we started heading back to Eterna, all set to head to the next city, whatever it would be, it was as quiet as ever. We went for a few more rounds of battling for the heck of it, and started for the door. I can't really explain what went on, exactly, but the closer I got to the door, the more of a sense of discomfort I got. I wasn't uncomfortable, not really, but the displeasure was imposed on me anyway. For a bit, when I was thinking in my dramatic writer-creativity way, I thought the house didn't want me to leave.

I tried opening the front door, but it refused to budge. After a few yanks and charges from both myself and my Pokemon, a Gastly suddenly materialized in front of the door, letting out a horrible screech. I half-mimicked it, jumpy and terrified, and I tripped at least five times in my hurry to get away from that door.

The Gastly rolled over in midair, cackling like a psycho before it disappeared. After it was gone, I sheepishly got back to my feet and tried the door again, and this time it opened, smooth as could be. My Pokemon bolted out ahead of me into the grass, rolling around and making a big deal out of being outside, and I just let them more or less lead me through the forest.

And then the Gastly popped up again, this time hovering just over my head. I had no clue it was doing so, and it seemed to enjoy just doing that for a while before it dangled itself in front of my face. Cue another oh-so-heroic scream and trip-dash backwards. The Gastly seemed to get even more joy out of this than before, zipping in several circles as it laughed. It dissolved again, leaving me shaken and more than a little irritated.

This happened several more times before the trees started thinning and revealing the city, and by that time I was ready to (metaphorically) kill something. The next time the Gastly appeared, I would be ready for it. I swung my backpack off one shoulder and to my front, so I could dig through it easier, and I pulled out a pokeball.

I did my best to conceal it in one hand as I shifted the backpack back to where it had been, and I waited. The Gastly didn't keep me waiting for long, and as soon as it appeared I threw the pokeball, trying to ignore my jumpiness. Unfortunately, my hands were apparently still shaking, because I missed the Gastly by a mile. It watched the pokeball drop, with a blank expression, then cracked up again. While it was still laughing at my failure, I quickly dove for the pokeball and tossed it again. This time it hit the Gastly square in the back (is that even a back?), sucking it inside. The sphere dropped to the ground, teetering several times. Out of irritation, I picked up the ball before it was done rocking and clasped it tightly between my hands, just to try and keep it from reopening.

The sound of the lock clicking came a few seconds later, and only then did I relax my grip on the ball. I looked in the top – there was the Gastly, peering up at me through the translucent red top. I sighed, pulling out my Pokedex to register it before I boxed it. The nickname screen appeared as soon as I scanned it, making me think twice. A Ghost/Poison type could serve me well in the future against Psychics (my favorite!), Grass Types, and other Ghosts at the very least.

After a while, I decided to put in a name. A moment or two after pressing Enter, Calamity's information pulled up. A level 15 female with a Serious nature (yeah right!), likes to run, happily eats anything, the Levitate ability, and a moveset of Spite, Mean Look, Curse, and Night Shade. I kind of wished she had a more effective attack move, but for now I'd have to work with what I had.

Dazzle sidled up next to me (she seemed to realize I couldn't carry her as a Floatzel) and pawed at the pokeball. It took me a moment to figure out what she meant, and I shook my head as a response. I wasn't going to release that little nightmare just yet, not after her series of tricks. Instead I just tucked the pokeball in my hoodie's front pocket, making a mental note to deal with it later.

I headed back into Eterna City, glancing around at the already-familiar settings. The setting sun cast a pretty orange glow about the whole place. I almost didn't want to leave, even though Eterna was never my favorite location in game. I was simply more acquainted with the place, having spent the most time there. Only one real problem with it remained – the Galactic building, and the Commander, Jupiter, inside. I was tempted to go in and deal with it, but as I've repeated a few times, I'm not the protagonist. Dawn is. If I knew her, she was already in there and whipping butt, maybe even already done with the task.

I decided to leave her to it. I'd stay one more night at the local Pokecenter, then head for the Cycling Road. No, I didn't have a bike, and I couldn't mooch one off of the bike shop owner, since it wasn't my job to beat Jupiter. Heck, I should've just cleared off at the Valley Windworks – my victory there was sheer luck. But even without a bike, I did have a plan to get down that path, and if anyone had any problems with my transportation methods, I'd be moving too fast for them to complain at me.

I stayed the night at the Pokecenter (my pillow was yet again stolen by my team), and the next morning I made a fast stop at the bike shop. It was fairly empty of people, though rows of bikes covered the floor and other wheeled things hung off the wall. It was tended to by a single employee, who was sitting behind the counter with his feet on top of it and some electronic device in his hands. I walked up to him, clearing my throat timidly as I approached.

"Excuse me, sir, but can you help me find the roller-skates?"


	16. Chapter 15: Why I Hate Cycling Road

I was having second thoughts. I was having third thoughts. I was having fifty-second thoughts, and every one of them told me to go back to Eterna and find a safer way to Veilstone, several of them offering handy excuses of why I chickened out.

All of my Pokemon were reballed and safely tucked away inside my backpack, and I was teetering over the edge of Cycling Road. Any players of the Diamond-Pearl arc know that you go really fast down this path, and it's difficult to go up, because of an implied slope. Now I was looking at said slope, which was the reason I was having all those extra thoughts and that heaviness in my stomach. It was not a gentle slope, or even just a moderate one. It was a very very long, very very steep road, with a section near the end that had a dome-like roof.

This huge slope would be facing off against my brand new size-nines, and I wasn't very fond of the odds. Yes, these were roller-skates, made for balance rather than speed like roller-blades were, but I am not the bravest person in the world. Even my moments of seeming bravery are brainlessly spoken snarky words, so in honesty I have never been brave at all.

"Okay, just a hill, just a little hill, you can take this, it doesn't matter that you don't really have brakes, you can do this, you went on a Ripstick down your driveway, this is just a really long driveway-" I got a sudden shove from behind, propelling me unsteadily down the hill.

"C'mon, you're just gonna make it worse if you wait!" A voice called to me, though my subconscious was the only part of me that heard it. Everything else was on panic mode, trying to balance me as my speed started picking up. Pretty soon I had assumed my 'Oh-shiz' face. This face is my version of terrified screaming. On a roller-coaster, other people will scream their heads off when they're afraid. I, on the other hand, will stare at the path ahead with eyes the size of dinner plates and my mouth tightly shut.

Once I snapped back to reality, I realized I was only a few yards away from a biker, and incoming fast. I did my best to dodge, and somehow managed to stay on my feet. This repeated a few more times before I got the hang of it, weaving carefully through the people, doing my best to not think about wiping out at this breakneck speed.

And then someone whizzed by me at least twice as fast, cackling like a maniac. Blonde hair, striped shirt, green scarf...of course. That was who had pushed me. "Barry, you idiot!" I yelled at him, but this just encouraged him. I only took a second to look, but apparently he'd borrowed my idea of less costly transportation – he was on a skateboard, tearing down the hill and cutting it as close to the other people as possible.

I really have no clue what motivated me to do such a stupid thing, but my subconscious took this as a challenge. Just as I was entering the domed final stretch, I picked up a foot and actually tried to speed up. I succeeded in skating a little faster, but before I'd put my feet down five times, I touched down a little too hard and wiped.

I swear to God on high, I broke everything but my neck. My feet kind of slid out from under me, like I'd been sweep-kicked, and before I knew it I was barrel-rolling down that hill, my view spinning at a speed that should really be illegal. I was stopped only a few feet farther than where the hill leveled out again, face-down and aching in twenty or so different places. I just lay there for a while, spread-eagle, waiting for the world to stop twirling and my brain to finish processing all the 'I'm hurt!' signals.

I heard the scraping sound of wheels turned sideways, the dull thump of someone hitting the ground, and that nifty little snapping sound when someone kicks a skateboard into their hands. "Hey, are you okay?" Barry's voice asked, sounding a little concerned.

I let out a moan without opening my mouth, pushed at the ground with my hands to start getting up, then decided it wasn't worth the effort. I just flopped to the ground again.

"If it makes you feel any better, that was the coolest wipe-out I've ever seen," Barry offered, sounding genuinely worried now.

"I'm fine," I answered, my voice muffled by the pavement. "Didn't even hurt." Ha! What a load of crap. I would have been happy staying there all day, had I not remembered three things – my Pokemon, my laptop, and the glasses on my face. I could already feel from their position that I'd jacked them up good and well, and if they weren't shattered by now, I'd be shocked.

I started getting up, my arms wailing in protest, to check my bag. By the time I was in a sitting position, my whole body was screaming bloody murder at me. My neck hurt like nothing I'd ever felt(I'd jerked and whacked it more than a few times on my little ride), my arms and legs were sure to bruise, my chest felt like I'd cracked a few ribs, and my back was only spared by the violent treatment of my backpack and belongings.

"It's a good thing you weren't wearing shorts or anything..." Barry commented. "You would have gotten way more scratched up."

I shrugged – cue another stab of discomfort – and continued pawing through my bag. I removed the four pokeballs of my team with caution, relieved that they were undamaged. Then I slowly removed my laptop, flipped it open, and pressed power. Nothing. Instant panic overtook much of my pain. I tried again, and this time it flickered to life – only for the screen to twist and contort. "Oh, for the love of-" I snapped, closing the laptop again. I slipped it back into my things, checked on my MP3 player (which was fine, having been firmly wrapped in one of my t-shirts) and zipped up my bag again before reaching down to take off my hoodie.

It took me a second to peel it off without rubbing it on my skin too much, and it turns out it was very useful for preventing barrel-roll injury. I had a few nasty-looking scrapes on both of my arms, but not nearly as many as there could have been. Barry just stared.

"What? It's not that bad," I snapped, feeling a little self-conscious. He shook his head. "No, no, not the cuts. I just didn't know that the hoodie could come off at all."

I blinked, not expecting this. I glanced down at my shirt – just a simple gray short-sleeved thing. I looked back up at Barry, rolling my eyes. "Of course it does. I just don't usually take it off." I turned my attention from that subject, tapping my ribs with the heel of my hand. It stung a little, but nothing was out of place. Nothing broken. I'd gotten lucky. I'd probably be bruised up come midday, but that was nothing a few long sleeves and baggy pants couldn't help.

"Well, are you sure you're okay?" Barry asked one more time.

"I'd be better if you hadn't shoved me down the hill, but yep, I'm good. Just a little sore." I answered, tossing my backpack over my shoulders again and picking up my team's pokeballs. I just tied the hoodie around my waist, deciding to let the cuts get a little air. "Now, while you're here, I think I deserve to give you a little payback, yes?"

"What?" Barry was taken aback, but a few seconds later he caught on, amber eyes gleaming. "Oh, sure! As if!" He mocked. "Just try and beat me in a battle! We've gotten a lot tougher! There's no way you could beat us now!"

Challenge accepted. His Buizel took out Credere before I really had a chance to react (He sent out his Pokemon after me, giving him the advantage) but he was quickly avenged by Kira. I swapped him out for Calamity, who trolled that poor Staravia with Night Shade and Curse, only for her to be downed by Barry's Grotle. Kira got swapped back in - Dazzle wouldn't be particularly useful here, injury or no – and after taking some heavy damage, he took down the Grotle.

Barry reballed the Grotle, wide-eyed. "You did it again. How did you do that again? I've been training for ages!"

I raised an eyebrow – or at least, I tried to. Both eyebrows went up, since I can't really make that skeptical look. "Five days at the Old Chateau," I told him. He stared at me like I was crazy, which I suppose was reasonable. "Yeah, I know, I got it. Either way, I'm headed for the next city. Where are you going?"

"Wherever the path goes," Barry answered. "There's Gyms in a lot of the cities, so it shouldn't be too hard to get a lot more badges in a hurry. Even if you did have a fluke of a win there, my team is still the strongest in the world! I'm gonna head back up the hill to heal my Pokemon, then I'm off!"

I nodded, smiling, but the smile disappeared as I realized something. The path ahead would take me through Mt. Coronet, a place I simply couldn't go without my Pokemon at full health, but I certainly did not want to go back up that hill and try skating down again. I'd already murdered my laptop, and that would have to get fixed somehow in order to type what you're reading now.

This meant something I didn't quite like – I had to go back to Oreburgh City. It was the closest to the mountain path, and the Pokecenter was right nearby. But there would now be the risk of accidentally meeting up with Roark and his likely bad attitude.

I sighed, making up my mind. "Well, then, see ya, Barry. I'm going to Oreburgh to heal before I go. Stay awesome, and don't push Dawn or Lucas down the hill if you see 'em coming." With that, I headed through the exiting gate, and slid down the unstable slope that led to the little mining town.

**(I know this is more of a 'filler' scene, but I figured this qualified as interesting enough to tell about! I'll tell about the cooler places later. And now you know why I was gone for a few weeks – the computer decided to die on me. I got it fixed, though, so no worries! I've just got a lot of catchup work to do.)**


	17. Chapter 16: Hearthome City, Day One

As soon as I got into town I took my messed-up glasses off my face and set to work straightening them. The lenses were, surprisingly, undamaged – I guess I'd pulled my head in fast enough when I went catapulting down Cycling Road. I was still on my skates, and they did make moving surprisingly easier for a while. I took a short stop at the Pokecenter before heading back up to Route 207, which took a mad scramble back up the slope and a bit of a helping hand from Credere.

I took out the local Trainers, healed again, and headed into the path through Mt. Coronet. I recognized this as the place where the main character would be interrupted by Cyrus, and I just crossed my fingers, hoping I wouldn't have to run into the mentally impaired man. I'll admit he's a smart cookie, but saying that emotions were worthless? Please.

I managed to get through the cave without even a glimpse of everyone's favorite bluenette, bringing me out to Route 208. The Trainers there were quickly disposed of (resulting in the evolution of Calamity!), and I headed in to Hearthome City. This had never been one of my favorite cities in-game, simply because I felt there was little to do there – I'm no Coordinator. Heck, I hardly even know what they do.

Instead of being greeted by Keira, a Contest judge, I was forcefully tackle-hugged by Dawn the instant I wasn't looking.

"Hannah!" she cried excitedly. "You made it here!"

"Y-yes, I did." I spluttered, tugging my way free from her death grip. "Nice to see you've gotten this far. How's it going?"

"Great! I found the coolest place – c'mon, you just gotta come see it!" she exclaimed, taking me by the arm and dragging me all the way through town to the Contest Hall. Of course. She stopped in front of the doors, smiling eagerly. "I haven't been inside yet, but I've heard so many amazing things about this building. Maybe if we hurry we can catch a Contest!"

I wasn't too terribly opposed to this idea; if Contests were anything like the fanfictions I've read and the things I've heard about the anime's Contests, it would be pretty sweet. "Sure, let's go."

As soon as we were inside, I heard a high, semi-nasally voice cry, "My hero!" I jumped, before remembering that Dawn was the victim. Dawn just smiled warmly at the young woman. "No, no, it wasn't a...Mom? What are you doing here?" she exclaimed, her eyes locking on the woman next to Keira.

"Hello, dear. And hello to you, too, Hannah! You look much better now! You both have been keeping well-fed, right?" she answered, her voice taking on a worried voice. Keira's eyes got wide as she glanced between Dawn and her mother.

"Wait – no way – Johanna's your mom? You could be a Contest star-in-the-making!" she squealed. Mrs. Johanna scratched the back of her neck. "Oh, well, I don't know...I haven't told her very much about Contests yet..."

The conversation went on like that for a while, and Dawn was quickly gifted with some items for her Fashion Case and a very nice-looking dress from her mother. After the two women had disappeared, Dawn grinned a mile wide, holding up the laced white dress to herself and spinning in a circle. "Hey, Hannah, do you think I could actually be a Contest star?"

I really had no clue, but ever feeling the need to lift others up, I nodded. "Absolutely. You might want to try the practice rounds, though, just so you can get the hang of it."

Dawn nodded excitedly. "And I know just the Pokemon to enter! But you promised we'd see a Contest together, so you've got to come see me here later, okay?"

I remembered making no such promise, but I agreed to her request. As said, seeing a Contest sounded kind of cool. We waved goodbye for the time being, and I headed straight for the Pokecenter. After my team was healed up, I allowed all of them out of their balls to come with me. None of them seemed too irked by their slightly lengthy containment, thank God.

Just as I was leaving the Pokecenter, something struck me. The editor of the PC in this region was Bebe. Her job required working with computers on a very regular basis. And she lived right next to the Pokecenter. I slowly glanced over at the house, raising my eyebrows. "There's no way it could be that easy." I told myself, but I timidly entered the house anyways – the sign hanging on the window did say 'Come In!', after all. Maybe her home was her workshop too. I looked around at the stacks of boxes, papers, and unfamiliar devices. Several computers were present, and in the very back of the large room, working on one of these computers, was the blonde-haired PC manager herself.

"Um, hello?" I piped up nervously. Bebe snapped up from her work, giving me a warm smile. "Oh, hiya! I didn't see you come in! What can I help you with?"

"Well, er, I know I'm not really of priority here, but I heard you were good with computers, and my laptop got broken...I was wondering if maybe you could help me fix it...? I can pay you, I mean...!"

Bebe laughed at my anxiety. "You, my friend, are amazing. I love working with computers! You don't have to pay me or anything, but I've got to ask you to stick around Hearthome for a week or so while I work on it. Can you do that?"

Oh, with pleasure! "Sure! Th-thank you!" I said, pulling my backpack to my front. "I'm not totally sure what's wrong with it, but it got...dropped, and now it isn't turning on right." Bebe grinned, rubbing her hands together. "Ooh, a challenge. Can I see this laptop of yours?"

I pulled out the laptop and handed it to her, and she pulled it open. "Huh, this isn't too shabby. It doesn't look like the screen's cracked, or the casing around the systems, so I'm willing to bet something on the inside just got a little knocked up." She pressed the power button, and it reared to life before glitching. "Nah, this isn't too bad at all! I might have to replace a few parts..." She went off talking about a ton of technical terms I didn't understand, and I cleared my throat after a few minutes of this.

"Oh, right. You can go ahead and leave me to this. Just check in every so often, okay? I'm sure you'll keep plenty occupied around this city!" she told me cheerfully, and I zipped up my backpack and left. We got back outside again, and I turned to my team. "Okay, guys, what first? We could go check out the Contests, we could make some Poffins for you guys, we can go to the Underground and actually make that Secret Base a nifty place to hang out..."

Credere, Dazzle, and Kira jumped up and down, pawing at the pavement under their feet, while Calamity just sort of turned sideways. I had no clue what this meant, so I took a different approach. "Okay, all in favor of seeing the Contests, paws and claws up!" Calamity raised a three-fingered claw-hand-thing, while the others stayed put. "Poffins?" Nothing. "Underground and Secret Base?" Overwhelming majority of three against one.

"Team, I know what we're going to do today," I said cheerfully, half-intentionally stealing a catchphrase of a certain popular television character. Then I was off around town, searching for the tunnels that led down into the earth. There were always at least three at any given town, and at least one at any given Route. I knew the tubes were here, I simply had to find them.

It took a ridiculously long time, but eventually we found them, about ten yards away from one of the city's fountains. I approached one, kicked it, and turned to my team as it was opening. "Okay, guys, here's the deal. I'm going to reball you while I get down there, since there is a severe lack of opposable thumbs on this team, and then I'll release you. Do not hit the wooden beams, get in a fight, or anything that could risk a cave-in. Credere and Kira shivered, obviously remembering the little incident at the Oreburgh Mine, and the other two just nodded.

"Okay, then." I reballed each of them, tucking their balls in my hoodie pocket, which was now inconveniently located behind me, but it kept my way clear. I started down the tube, and after a span of climbing, I was able to drop down into the dimly lit corridors. I let out my Pokemon, pulled out my little Underground device, and used it to track down my Base.

The next few hours were spent trying to break rocks and brush out debris from the room. This was done with relative success, but after that, my whole team and I were ready to just collapse on the floor, forget trying to get goods to decorate the base with. I buried some Spheres I'd dug up a while back, and we headed back for the surface. We got a room at the Pokecenter, and when I checked the time, it was 10 PM.

Day one of our stay at Hearthome City was done.


	18. Chapter 17: Another Tagalong

Day two brought me an overeager Dawn as I was sitting down to eat in the Pokecenter's lobby, which I suppose was to be expected. She bounded up to me, wide awake (which I certainly was not).

"Hiya, Hannah! I heard there's going to be a Hyper Rank Contest held today!" she told me. "Hyper Rank is one of the highest, so this one will be really cool to see! Want to come? I'm going to grab a good seat while it's still early!"

"Sure..." I mumbled. "Just let me get some caffeine first. I'm not alive yet." My Pokemon seemed much more awake than me, but Dazzle seemed to be all but passed out in my lap, despite her larger size.

"Okay." Dawn said. "Not a morning person, huh?" She laughed a little, rubbing Kira on the head. "Neither is Barry, believe it or not."

"I have a hard time believing it, but I can." I answered, gently shaking Dazzle to get her off my lap. "C'mon, girl, I gotta get up and go with Dawn."

Eventually we did get out of there, and Dawn led the way back to the Contest Hall, this time not dragging me. She seemed to be very familiar with the place at this point, because she led me through several hallways before taking me through one of the many doorways. "This is where the Contest is going to be. We've got about an hour before it starts, so we're getting front row seats!"

I simply nodded, nursing the soda I'd gotten before we left. She guided me down to the seats, my Pokemon in tow behind me. "Hannah, you might want to put your Pokemon away...you can bring them back out if there's enough space, but we don't know how packed this place is going to be."

I did as she said, for all of my Pokemon but Credere – he'd given me such a pleading look, I just couldn't put him away. Dawn shot me a questioning look, and I shrugged. "He can sit on my lap or something."

The next hour passed very quickly, thanks to my MP3 player, and it was halfway through Taylor Swift's 'Safe and Sound' when I snapped back to reality and turned it off. Dawn had been right – it was a good thing I'd reballed all my Pokemon, because the large arena-like room was jam-packed. The prehistoric Pokemon on my lap looked around anxiously, a little nervous around all the people.

The lights dimmed a few minutes later, and an announcer headed out onto the stage. He started with a lot of fancy introductions, then he announced the names of the contestants. Dawn and I were right to the left of the stage, so we got a good view of the entered Coordinators.

I mostly ignored the names, but I was forced to notice one kid out there – as he was exiting the back room, he held up his hand to the onlookers. Unfortunately, the row of onlookers started with me. The kid glanced at me encouragingly at my shrinking form before I caught on – high fives. He was collecting high-fives from the crowd. I obliged, as did Dawn and the rest of the people he held his hand to before heading to the center of the stage.

The kid was in a tuxedo, which I found kind of hilarious, with a rose pinned to its front. Probably the most unusual thing about him was his dark gray hair, but other than that, he looked like a kid I would've found in my school back home. He was busy waving to the television cameras, hamming it up for the people watching the Contest at home. The other Coordinators looked a little peeved by his attitude, but they were all at least twenty.

"We will start with the Appeals round!" one of the judges announced – if I remembered right, he was named Dexter. At his side was Keira, and the other judge whose name slipped my mind (I think it was Jordan). "May the first Contestant come forward with their Appeal now!"

I mostly fell asleep during the Appeals round (see, this is why I don't clean!), but come the second round, the Battle round, I woke up quick. They paired off the tux kid with an old dude, and from what I heard of the rules, the battles between the Contestants would be one on one. The other two Contestants were off battling with their Pokemon, but my attention was more focused on Tux Kid for one reason – his Pokemon was a Cubone. Last I checked, those weren't found in Sinnoh.

The battle was over very quickly, considering the Cubone was faced off against a Stunky. It only took one very gracefully deployed Bone Club. Not the prettiest move ever, which was what the Coordinators were going for here, but it finished the battle.

"The winners of this round are Miss Jennifer Hollis and Mister Lane Dorin!" _Tux Kid._ I thought. This kid was not 'Lane Dorin', he was Tux Kid. Those two faced off for a considerably longer battle, Cubone versus Lopunny, but in the end the young woman, Jennifer, won. The two shook hands, and all four Coordinators returned to the main stage.

The buzz of the crowd died down a little as the three judges tallied the scores, and then the Dexter person went back up onstage. "I proudly declare Miss Jennifer Hollis to be the winner of this Hyper Rank Contest!" The woman took her ribbon, beaming, and Dexter went on to give some formal closing words before everyone was released to leave.

The whole way out, Dawn was chatting my ear off. "Did you see how that Beautifly used Silver Wind and Gust at the same time? It looked so pretty! And the Lopunny was just so cute doing that little dance! And...oh, look, isn't that the kid from onstage?" We were back in the lobby, and lo and behold, there was Tux Kid, chatting it up with the people nearby. "We should go say hello!" Dawn announced, and she started dragging me over.

Let me tell you, she is disturbingly strong for a girl with her figure. I had to drop to the ground in order to get any sway over her will. "No," I told her. "I'm not good at talking to my seniors, okay? Let go."

"Oh, come on, don't be that way!" Dawn told me, taking my other hand and yanking me to my feet before letting me go. "It's obvious he doesn't bite." I opened my mouth to protest when a shadow crossed the two of us. Tux Kid was standing right there, smiling warmly at both of us. I glanced away, already embarrassed. There was no way he could've just missed that scene.

"I remember you two. You're the one who was revved up about the whole Contest," he said, looking at Dawn. "And you're the shy kid who didn't want to give me a high five." I looked down. "Um, yeah."

He just laughed. Dawn took the split second of silence to start up conversation with the kid, asking when he'd started as a Coordinator, how he trained his Pokemon for the Contests, and other things like that. I just stood there, soaking in the information. He'd gotten interested as a five year old, joined real Contests at nine, and had continued up to his current age of sixteen. He trained with a lot of Poffin bribery and practice in Amity Square. He'd won several Contests and ribbons with his current team of three – the Cubone, Yoshika, a Roselia, Noelle, and a Kadabra, Corona, all female.

"Hey, why aren't you joining in?" he asked me, after about ten minutes of rapid-fire interrogation from Dawn. "Um, I dunno. I do have a bit of a question, though."

"Shoot."

"Aren't Contests...kind of feminine?" I asked, drawing a raised eyebrow from the gray-haired Coordinator.

"No, no, no. I assure you, Contests are the pinnacle of manliness." He told me, sounding very solemn until a few seconds after he'd finished talking. Then he cracked a grin. "Nah, I'm kidding. Contests are sometimes considered a little girly, but it's just so much fun to participate in them! The cool moves, the battling..."

"If you like the moves and stuff, why aren't you just a Trainer?" I questioned, and the boy hesitated. He looked a little uncomfortable around the subject, but the moment of uncertainty passed as soon as it had come. "Well, no particular reason. I plan to try being a regular Trainer at some point, but for now I'm more than happy being a Coordinator."

I didn't buy this at all, because he looked quite interested in the idea of being a Trainer, but I didn't push any more on the subject. "Are you two Trainers, then?" he quipped. Dawn nodded, I shrugged, Credere snorting at my side in disbelief at the boy.

"Do you get to see much around the region?" Apparently it was is turn to interrogate us. Dawn didn't really give a straight answer, being much to curious about Contests, but I went ahead and started raving, a surprising amount given my general shyness and anxiety around Tux Kid. I went on to talk about the lights and bustle at Jubilife, the flower paradise that was Floaroma, the huge expanse of greenery at Eterna Forest, and everything I found cool about it. The kid just listened, nodding at appropriate times, his dark blue eyes gleaming with the excitement of a toddler.

When I realized how long I'd gone on, I trailed off midsentence, coughing slightly and looking at the ground. "Um...sorry." I murmured, feeling humiliated.

"No, that's really cool! By the way, I know you ladies probably heard it onstage, but my name's Lane. Do you think I could talk to you two more later?" Dawn eagerly nodded her agreement to this, and I just shrugged. "Um, If you want me to..."

"Great! Are you two going to be here tomorrow?" Lane continued. It registered to me that he was being a little creepy, but I shook it off – I'd certainly met more overeager people, and some of them were my best friends back at home.

Dawn answered for both of us. "Absolutely!" The conversation went on for a while before dawn and Lane finally let me go. Once we were outside, Credere growled a little, flicking his tail at the door we'd just come through.

"Yeah, I know. They're both a little overbearing, but they're sweet people, right?" I asked, shrugging. Credere snorted again, rolling his crimson eyes. I could just hear his words – _Suuure. Yeah, right._ I sighed, giving up on the conversation, and I let my other Pokemon out from their balls.

The rest of the day was pretty lazy – I checked in on Bebe, who had all but dismantled my laptop (thanks for the heart attack, lady), checked out Amity Square, and tried making Poffins (I failed miserably). After that it was just an early turn-in at the Pokecenter, and all of a sudden I was wondering how the heck I was going to entertain myself in Hearthome for a whole week, without my laptop.

I couldn't sleep that night, even after all my Pokemon were out cold, each sharing the pillow they had cooperated to steal from me. I was just drifting in and out of a doze, and by one in the morning, I decided to put my restlessness to some use. I pulled my hoodie on over my pajama shirt and left the room and the Pokecenter, barefoot and looking less than stunning in my sweats.

The city was very quiet, with only the occasional light on around town. This was something I could genuinely appreciate about the Pokemon world – the peace and stillness of a sleeping city. In my own home, cars were always out, everyone was stressed, and the whole place was flat out overpopulated. It was difficult to find a pretty natural area without going a few hours away from home. Here, everyone used bikes and walked, trained Pokemon, and even though there was some more advanced technology here than in other places, the region still had a healthy respect for nature and its well-being.

I was just enjoying the peace and letting off some energy when I saw a vaguely familiar person standing in front of the gate that led to Solaceon Town. There was Tux Kid, but not in a tuxedo. He was dressed like a normal teenager, at least by Sinnoh's standards. He was wearing a black t-shirt over a long-sleeved white one, the back of the black one bearing the symbol of the Pokemon League in white, and a pair of worn-looking gray cargo pants. Tossed around his neck was a navy blue scarf, and over his shoulder was a single-strapped backpack, clearly loaded down with stuff.

He appeared to just be staring at the gate, not moving. The gentle wind would occasionally pick up his scarf and blow it a little, but aside from that it looked like a picture. I cleared my throat a little, and he jumped, whipping to face me. "What are you doing here?" he snapped, caught off guard and looking a little guilty.

"I could ask you the same thing." I told him, shrugging. "I couldn't sleep. Decided to take a pajama run." I tucked my hands in my hoodie's pocket, tilting my head at him. "And now that I've answered you, do give me a reason that you're out."

Lane looked a little like a cornered animal at this question, and after a moment's silence, he let out a breath I hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Okay, you got me. Back at the Contest Hall, I lied. I really, _really_ want to be a Trainer. But I'm not allowed to leave."

"Then why are you out here?"

"I don't have to tell you."

"Then _why_ are you out here?" I questioned, a little more forcefully.

"This is normal!" He exclaimed, flinging his arms into the air. "I'm out here a lot! I always think I can leave, but then I just can't and I go home. It's not a big deal!"

"Why can't you leave?" I kept prodding, and he glared at me, crossing his arms as the wind picked up his hair and his scarf again.

"Persistent, aren't you?"

"Nah, just overly curious and stubborn. Now please answer."

"I don't have to tell you," he said again, and this time I could tell I wasn't going to budge him on this one.

"Did your parents ban you?" I suggested. He thought about this one for a moment, then shook his head. "Do you not have the money to get started?" Another shake of the head. "Are you afraid to go out there on your own?" There was a very long pause at this one, then he shook his head.

"I get it if you're nervous. I would rather be traveling with a friend than alone, but...I'm not from around here, so my friends aren't here with me."

Lane raised an eyebrow at me, his defensive expression wearing off a little. "Really?" I raised my eyebrows, trying to mimick his expression, but failing to.

"Yes, really. I may be shy around people I don't know, but I love being around people I trust." Another long pause followed this, and Lane's expression changed to something almost hopeful.

"When are you leaving Hearthome?"

"Well, when I get my laptop back from Bebe in about a week. She's fixing it for me since it got murdered on Cycling Road." I said. "Never again will I attempt that hill in skates without proper protection."

He laughed a little at this. There was another silence, shorter this time. "Well...when you leave, would it be hugely impairing if I came along?" My 'oh-shiz' face returned. This would be an awkward question to answer. If I said yes, I would be agreeing to bring along someone I wasn't completely sure if I was comfortable around. If I said no, I'd probably crush him. It was kind of weird, having this kind of sway over someone older than me.

"Um...sure. Sure. Just clear it with your parents and get whatever you might need. If you think there's even a shadow of a chance you'll need something, bring it. Sure."


	19. Chapter 18: I Have My Doubts

The next morning was spent sleeping, thanks to my inability to sleep the previous night. The only reason I got up at all today was because I was kicked out of bed by Dazzle and promptly scared out of my wits by Calamity. We grabbed a quick breakfast at the Pokecenter before heading back out into town, at roughly 11:30.

First thing I did was check up on Bebe and my laptop, which she'd miraculously pieced back together. She assured me that it was almost fixed, and would probably be done by the next day, if not by that evening. When I didn't leave immediately, she started playfully shooing me, telling me to go see the rest of Hearthome.

It took me a few more minutes of walking after that to remember my conversation with Lane, and what I'd agreed to. This set my stomach churning – yes, I wanted to have a traveling partner that I could actually talk to, but when this idea had first crossed my mind, I was thinking of my friends back at home. I hardly knew Lane, and while he seemed like a sweet kid, I generally stick with the people I know front, back, and upside-down.

Despite this, I decided to see if I couldn't find him at the Contest Hall and see if he had started getting ready to go. From what Bebe had said, I might wind up leaving earlier than was planned.

The Contest Hall was alive with people already, whether they were entering Contests, finding seats as the audience, or priming their Pokemon. I felt a little out of place, with my Pokemon next to me and not being entered for the shows. I stuck around in the lobby for about half an hour, checking around for my new tagalong, when he tapped my shoulder from behind.

Lane all but died laughing when he saw my reaction, with the 'oh-shiz' face, a leap into the air, and a rapid spin to see who was there. My Pokemon were no help either, since all of them but Credere were rolling on the ground with their mixed cries of mirth.

"May I help you?" I half-growled, annoyed. I was seriously hoping he wouldn't be like this the whole time he was traveling with me, or I might crack.

He just wiped his eyes, his snickers dying down. "You just did. How are you doing?" He crossed his arms, giving me an amiable smile. He still looked like a regular teenager for now, completely tux-less.

"Good, minus the heart attack," I told him. "Have you started packing to go? Bebe told me she's almost finished with my laptop." He visibly flinched when I mentioned packing, and he shook his head.

"No, not yet. I was just coming here to look around, and then I was going to do that." he told me, uncrossing his arms and putting his hands in his pockets. I sighed.

"Oh, well. There's still something we need to take care of, if you're going to be a Trainer. Do you have that Kadabra's pokeball with you?"

"Yes...why?" He inquired, looking genuinely confused as I reballed Calamity.

"We need to do some evo trading," I said, pointing at Calamity's ball. "Both Kadabra and Haunter evolve through trading, and you're going to need a strong battling Pokemon to get you started on the training. Having an Alakazam will automatically make you a competent Trainer, and with a little work you can be great."

Lane pulled out his Kadabra's pokeball, fiddling with it anxiously. "But...I don't know if Corona wants to evolve. I don't know if we should do the trading."

"I promise it'll be fine," I said, half-lying. "But if you want, you can call her out and we can ask her." Lane shrugged at this, and did so. He asked his Pokemon about the trading, she nodded, and the pokeballs quickly swapped hands. I passed Corona's ball from hand to hand, then pulled out my Pokedex, taking a second to register Alakazam's information before passing the pokeball back to Lane. He passed mine back as well, and he immediately released his Pokemon, blue eyes widening at the sight of it.

"Pretty awesome, huh?" I commented, letting Calamity from her ball. She was easily as tall as me, which I found a little unnerving, but I shook that off, mentally praying that she wouldn't try and give me hell with her new abilities. "Now that you've got at least one fully evolved Pokemon with you, you'll be safe out in the field."

Lane nodded, looking a little uncomfortable. "Okay." He reballed Corona, tucking the pokeball into his pocket. "I'm going to go pack my stuff. Please tell me we're going soon."

"Um, yeah. I can ask Bebe to try and hurry, if you're that anxious to get going." I suggested, confused. He was acting like he didn't want to go, but he was saying he wanted to, and fast. Maybe he was just afraid of losing his nerve?

He didn't answer to my suggestion, instead glancing away toward the rest of the bustle in Contest Hall. I sighed, letting the subject slide. "Well, I'll come back here around seven, let you know if we're going." I got a nod as a response, and I slowly turned to leave. Had I said something offensive? He had just zoned out. I'm just no good at this talking stuff.

I took off out of the building, smacking my forehead. "God, you idiot! You need to be more social!" Credere gave me a lopsided look, narrowing his eyes at me. I narrowed mine right back. "What?" The Cranidos just rolled his eyes, and Dazzle proceeded to whop him upside the head.

The rest of the day was blown in the Underground, digging and burying and the occasional trade of Spheres. Oh, just thought you guys should know – the stuff doesn't get warped to your PC. You have to lug it all the way to your Secret Base. Not fun. But I managed to get the frame for a bed, and with a little more trading, I might be able to just start spending the night at my base instead of the Pokecenter. I still needed to get my own flag, too.

By time I came back up, it was almost nine, and the sky was already almost completely dark. While this spared my eyes from light murder, it meant I'd missed the time I was supposed to go back and tell Lane when we were going. I bolted to Bebe's house, and she grinned as soon as she saw me come in.

"There you are!" she exclaimed. "Your laptop's good as new. The hard-drive had to be replaced, but I copied the information from it and put it on the new one before I finished."

I smiled, relieved at this. "Thanks a ton. Are you sure you don't want me to pay you?" Bebe shook her head vehemently.

"No! That was fun! Oh yeah...I hope you don't mind, but I uploaded the Underground programs, since you didn't have them on here. Most PCs do, but...well, you know how they work, right?" she asked, tilting her head a little.

I shook my head, mystified. "What do they do?"

"Well, they let you scan for treasure, Spheres you've buried, Traps that are hidden...aside from that, it would be best for you to see how they work for yourself." She held up my laptop for me to take.

"Thanks!" I told her, accepting my computer. I put it back in my backpack, and slung it back over my protesting shoulders. I can handle a lot of weight, but I was sore and bruised and aching from the nonstop travel and my battering on Cycling Road. "Just let me know if you need anything from me, okay?"

Bebe nodded. "Okay. Here's what I want – if you break that thing again, come back here so I can fix it again!" I mentally facepalmed, utterly baffled at how someone could be so fascinated with fixing electronics, but I was not complaining.

"You bet. See you around!" I said, waving. After that I took off for the Contest Hall, hoping Lane would still be there. By time I got there, the lobby was all but empty, and it was obvious I'd missed him.

I headed back out, scolding myself in my head, when I saw him a couple blocks away. Before you accuse me of exaggerating, the streets were empty, and it's kind of hard to miss a gray-haired youth. He was just sitting on a bench, his backpack strapped on.

I made my way over, and as I drew closer I could hear his labored breathing. This made no sense to me, as I'd seen that he'd been sitting, but he sounded like he'd just run a marathon. "Um...Lane? You okay there?" The boy took a moment to respond, and he only nodded.

"Are you sure?" I pressed. Another nod. He was lying. That much was obvious. I left him alone though, letting him catch his breath. He pushed himself into a regular sitting position when he wasn't gasping anymore, and he cast me a wary glance.

"Sorry I didn't come to the Contest Hall earlier, lost track of time. But the good news is, I have my laptop, and we can go whenever you're ready."

I'd barely finished the sentence when he answered, "Now. I want to go now." I gave him a lopsided look. "Well, are you sure you're o-"

"Yes!" he half-snapped. "I'm fine. I'm completely fine, and I'd like to leave now." I cringed a little at his sharp tone of voice. Now I was starting to wonder if Lane wasn't bipolar, and I was a little scared of him. He couldn't murder me in my sleep, not with my Pokemon there (well, minus Credere; he'd help maim me), but it still freaked me out a little.

He stared at me for a minute, then his face fell. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snap." I nodded a little in response to this.

"It's...it's okay. And I know you'd like to go right now, but I'm kind of dead on my feet. I've got to sleep a little. First thing tomorrow morning, okay?"

"...Okay. First thing."


	20. Chapter 19: Solaceon Town

**I apologize for the long wait. I had zero, and I mean ZERO, motivation to be writing recently. I'm forcing myself to write this chapter. I'm surprised the writer's block waited this long to kick me in the butt, but I'm sure it'll go away soon. Either way, enjoy!**

…...

When Lane said 'first thing', he meant 'first thing'. I hauled my rear out of bed at seven, thanks to Credere's insistence, and apparently I still wasn't fast enough. Lane was sitting in the Pokecenter's lobby, backpack on and pokeballs sitting in his cupped hands. I wasn't sure if this was creepy or promising, so I decided it was both.

I got a banana before heading over to him, peeling it on the way. "Man, do you know how early it is? It's practically midnight..." I told him sleepily, and he rolled his eyes.

"No, it's morning," he told me, very matter of fact. "And you yourself said we could go first thing in the morning." I groaned, making a mental note to never again promise anything I might later regret.

"Fine, fine. I take it you're ready to go?" I asked, even though it was a stupid question. He nodded. I took another bite from my banana and waved to him, gesturing for him to follow. "Well, c'mon, then. We're headed for Solaceon Town." My Pokemon trailed after me, all but Dazzle wide awake.

It took me a minute to figure out which way to go, still being immensely drowsy, but I did eventually get to where I was going. I started for the gate, Lane following me a little more slowly. I was just starting through the entryway when Lane stopped entirely. I glanced over my shoulder, raising my eyebrows at him. "You coming?"

He didn't respond for a moment or two, just looking at the gate, then he shook his head. "Uh, yeah. Sorry. Zoned out for a second there." Now there was something I could relate to. If I was left alone for more than thirty seconds, I would space out and not come back until someone snapped in my face or something.

"That's fine," I told him, smiling. Now that I had some common ground, as ridiculous as it was, I felt like the ice had thinned a little. I continued on, and this time Lane followed.

Route 209 was still a little dark, the sun peaking over the horizon. The only people out were a few joggers, running up and down stretches of the path. This meant we were pretty much home free to take a straight shot to Solaceon Town, no Trainer interventions on the side.

"Hey, Lane. You want to do some training in the grass, or go directly to Solaceon? Your call," I quipped. There was a pause. "Head to Solaceon." came the reply. I wasn't surprised.

"Okay then." I glanced around the Route, half-wishing there _were_ Trainers to battle, and I kept going. It wasn't long before I was pulled over by Lane again.

"Look! Berries!" I groaned, turning back to where he was kneeling. He was carefully picking them off the branches, putting them into his backpack when he was done.

"Was that necessary?" I questioned, just wanting to get where I was going. He stared at me like I'd just requested that he stop breathing.

"Of course! I need those to make Poffins, and those are key to winning Contests!" he informed me, standing back up and putting his backpack back on.

I sighed, offering a smile and letting it pass. I stayed quiet for a good span of time, pausing when Lane decided he wanted yet another pit stop for something or another. This happened more than a dozen times (I counted!) over a stretch of ground I could have covered in under five minutes. Only then was there a break from the stop-and-go, in the form of a challenge from two young twin girls.

The two babbled something about battling before clumsily throwing their pokeballs at us, revealing a Mime Jr. and a Bonsly. Credere was out front in an instant, pawing the ground with a thrice-clawed foot. Lane seemed stunned by this sudden event, and it took a pointed glance for him to catch the hint and send out his Roselia.

Credere got the first attack, being the speed demon of the group, and he Headbutted the Mime Jr. on his own incentive. This didn't bother me, because this is what I'd have ordered anyways, and he was willing to listen to me if I spoke up now. The other Pokemon didn't fall, but wasn't in the best condition either. The two opponents both attacked Credere, who shook off their attacks no problem.

Lane's voice piped up beside me, and the firmness he spoke with surprised me. "Noelle, Mega Drain on the Bonsly!" The target of the attack fainted instantly, leaving only the Mime Jr. to deal with. It was KO'd a moment later by Noelle, who'd jumped on the opportunity for a win. I shot a disbelieving glance at Lane – I'd thought he had no experience with training whatsoever. He glanced back, looking a little uncomfortable when he realized I was staring. "What?"

I shook it off, making a mental note to never underestimate people. "Uh, nice." was my only comment, and Credere rolled his eyes at me, trotting back to my side. The two little girls babbled incoherently, looking to be on the verge of tears, which just made me feel like a monster. Fortunately, they didn't pout for long, and they let me go after a hasty apology.

"Hey, Lane, have you trained before this?"

"Of course. I may not be the best in some fields, but I do train a little." Lane told me, very matter of fact. He started off ahead of me, leaving me standing there with my Pokemon. Dazzle tilted her head in the direction of the Trainer, a soft, almost inaudible growl escaping her.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I muttered, yet again peeved by my lack of communication with my team. A few quick strides and I'd caught back up with Lane, who seemed completely focused on getting to Solaceon. I didn't understand how he could switch 'modes' so easily, despite the fact that two of my three brothers are ADHD and technically the same way.

"Hey, you there. The one with the gray hair."

"Hm?" Lane looked at me from the corner of his eye, absentmindedly tugging at his scarf. I froze. I'd intended to ask about why he was...well, the way he was, but now that I rethought it, it seemed extremely rude.

"Uh, never mind." I received another lopsided glance, but at least this spared me from looking like a social introvert. The rest of the route passed in an awkward silence, and even though I was itching to see a few places like the Lost Tower and the broken one that supposedly housed Spiritomb, I wanted to see Solaceon more.

The town itself was a quaint little place. The majority of the residents I could see were either in overalls or jeans. The most advanced building was the Pokecenter, and that was tucked away in the corner of the town. If it hadn't been for that glaringly red roof, I would have missed it altogether. My Pokemon started nattering to each other, and judging from what I could tell, it was because of a large, fenced-off area that covered much of the land next to the Pokecenter. Every so often a Pokemon of some sort would dash by, just to disappear into the trees or tall grass on the plot.

It occurred to me that this was the breeding place, and I started over to the wooden fence, leaning over onto the planks that made it. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my Pokemon creeping up beside me, their demeanor suggesting that they were confused about my interest in the place. I stayed there for a while, until I heard my name being called.

"Hannah! Where'd you go?" It was obviously Lane's voice, but it was tinged with panic. I let out a quiet sigh, making up my mind. I'd get my answers.

"Over here, Lane." I called, not necessarily being loud. There was a short silence, then the sound of fast footfalls approaching.

"I didn't know where you went for a second there. Don't disappear like that," He told me firmly. I looked over my shoulder, grinning a little at his irritated face.

"Lane, let's play a game." I suggested. There was a long pause. "It's called the Question Game. I'll ask you a question, which you honestly answer with yes or no, and then you ask me a question, which I answer by the same rules."

The silence drew on, and he furrowed his eyebrows. "Uh...Oo-kay. Sure. It's not much of a game, though."

"It's like the Name Game, sort of. Not really played for fun, but for the sake of getting to know a person a little better. And considering we're going to be traveling together for a little while, we might as well get to know each other."

…**...**

** The next chapter should reveal a bit about both Hannah and Lane, and be much more amusing to read than this bunch of rambling, so bear with me a little longer.**


	21. Chapter 20: The Question Game

"You ready to start?" I quipped, swinging my legs. I'd taken a seat on the wooden fence, and Lane had just sat cross-legged on the ground, leaning against the fence a little ways away.

"Sure. You start."

I paused, thinking for a moment. I had a ton of questions to ask, and knowing my luck, I'd only get two answered before Lane locked up on me. Social skill failure, remember? "Have you ever been to any of the other regions? Kanto, Johto, et cetera?"

"Yep. I was born in Hoenn, in Verdanturf Town – it's a little place, don't feel stupid if you don't know it – but my family and I moved to Hearthome when I was about three or so. We've stayed there ever since." Lane shrugged. "My turn!" He suddenly halted, his expression turning pensive. "Okay, I'm out of good ideas. Have you been to any other regions, or are you from around here?"

"I'm from...very, very far away from here. A region called America, from...Texas City." I supplied. Close enough. "I started my training here, though, and while Sinnoh is the only region I've visited aside from my own, I do know pretty much everything about the other regions and their Pokemon. I blame too much reading." Lane simply nodded to this, looking a little confused at the name America. "Either way, me again. Why is your hair gray? Aren't you a little young for gray hair?"

"Genetics. I was born with it. Besides, there are some people with weirder natural colors. Green, blue, even pink here and there. I got my gray the same way you got your dirty blonde."

"Brown," I intervened.

"Whatever, brown. Next question. Do you have any siblings?"

"Please, don't remind me," I groaned melodramatically. "Three brothers live with me and my parents back at home. I have a blended family. Two of them are my stepbrothers, and the littlest is my half-brother. Same mom, different dad. And then I've got another half-brother, and a half-sister that live far from me. I'd give an arm to have a sister I could see regularly, but...meh."

"Really? I've got more than enough sisters to spare, you can have them." Lane snickered. I stuck my fist in the air.

"Deal, buddy! My turn again. How long have you had your Pokemon, and which was your first?"

"Since I was six, and my first would be Yoshika. My oldest sister goes to other regions a lot on business – she's an adult now – and she brought Yoshika back as a sort of present for me, since I wasn't really allowed out of the house then, and I 'needed a friend', as she put it."

"I see." This little explanation roused at least a dozen more questions, but I shoved them back down. His next question came just a few second later, and it took me by surprise.

"What are you scared of?" I didn't expect anything so direct, and certainly not something so potentially troublesome. But it couldn't really hurt to answer – my fears weren't anything too bad.

"Oh, so many to choose from..." I joked. "Well, when I was littler, I used to be terrified of spiders...spider Pokemon, but now I'm pretty much only genuinely afraid of two things. Needles – as in the doctor's office vaccination type needle, not pine needles or sewing needles or anything. That'll rile me to tears in record time. My other fear is more long term though. I'm...I'm a clingy person. There is next to nothing I wouldn't do for a friend of mine that I trust and love. I'm absolutely terrified of losing my friends, especially when I'll never get to see them again. That will drive me to near insanity. Losing a friend will keep me up at night, tug at my mind every spare second I'm left alone with my thoughts, and generally make my life suck."

Lane seemed to process this for a bit before nodding. "I can understand that. It's never really been a problem for me, but I get where you're coming from."

"What are you scared of, then?" I prodded. "I told you, now you tell me." He stared for a bit, his eyes narrowing just a little – I doubt I would have noticed if he'd been any farther away – but he did eventually answer.

"Dying. Dying and being forgotten, but mostly dying." he told me. "I've been afraid of that for as long as I can remember."

I shivered, the topic unnerving me a little. "Yeah, gotta agree with you there. I don't want to die."

"What sane person does? I can't understand how people could be suicidal. Throwing your life away because someone broke up with you or something? Ridiculous." Lane's voice had taken on a harsh, bitter tone. The questions started bubbling up again, and it took a lot more effort to strangle them this time.

"Well, I doubt you'll be forgotten." Suddenly it occurred to me – Lane. Lane wasn't an important character in the game, did not _exist_ in the game, and thus should not exist for me to socialize with in my current situation. This suggested the absurd proposition that I was not in my game, and somehow managed to dream all this madness up (which would be a feat even for my lucid dreaming self). It struck me as ironic that Lane feared being forgotten when he probably wasn't even real in the first place, but I shook this off. _It can't hurt to see how this ends up, crazy lucid dreaming or no. Besides, this is fun, sore muscles and stiff joints aside._

"Huh? Did you say something?" Lane snapped me back to reality, his look one of true bewilderment. "Coulda sworn you said something, but..."

"What did you think I said?" I asked, confused myself now. He shrugged.

"Didn't catch much, but it was something about dreaming and fun or something..." He rolled his eyes. "Ignore me, I'm just being an idiot again."

This freaked me out. Lane hadn't been very specific, but he was spot-on to what I was thinking. I did eventually shake this off, assuming it to be a very lucky coincidence of sorts, but it still clung with me a bit.

"Well, next question. Your turn, Lane." I pushed, hoping to get away from that topic while there was still a chance. The subject change worked, and my next question came immediately. "Favorite color."

The game took a more petty direction after that, and after the exchange of a few trivial things, like said colors (mine's purple, his is red) and some other little things, it more or less turned into a game of Would You Rather. While I was still curious about what I hadn't gotten answered, I was glad to see that he was actually enjoying the conversation, getting used to me more or less.

A full hour of this passed (hey, who doesn't like Would You Rather?) before my Pokemon, who had just been socializing off by themselves, started putting up a fuss. For once, it was easy to tell what they wanted, since my own stomach was trying to gnaw on itself.

"Okay, lunch break, then we get back to...doing productive things."

"Like what?" Lane asked, standing and stretching. I just shrugged in response. There was still a good part of the route behind us that we hadn't yet covered, there was always room for training, the Lost Tower was calling my name... My thoughts were promptly interrupted by an eager suggestion from Lane.

"The Solaceon Ruins! I heard those are really neat, and those symbol Pokemon are there!" I got cold chills when he hinted at the Unown – reading the Lost Silver creepypasta once upon a time hadn't scared me then, but I'd had time to stew on it. But by this point Lane looked to be very revved up about visiting these ruins, so who was I to kill his fun? Maybe I could just go train or something while he looked around.

"Uh, sure, you go ahead and do that. But I'm not much of a fan of the ruins, so..."

"Oh, c'mon, it'll be fun!" Lane pleaded. This exchange continued for a while, eventually condensing to a simple 'yes, no, yes, no' fight, until I broke down and said okay. He allowed himself a brief moment to shoot me a 'Ha, I won' look before he bolted for the edge of town, and the large rocky hill that housed the ruins. I had no choice but to follow, and my team allowed me to reball them for the time being, minus Kira. He stayed with me.

Next stop, the local region ruins.


	22. Chapter 21: Solaceon Ruins

The chill in the ruins was evident, cutting through my long, warm sleeves like they were nothing more than tissue paper. I shivered. Have I mentioned that I absolutely despise the cold? I'm not built for putting up with the low temperatures. Lane had already headed to the back of the first small room, running his fingers over the Unown text written on the wall.

I drew closer, observing the writing. It was faded and old, shallowly cut into the wall and painted with some dark substance. I knew it was just directions for how to get to the ruins' 'treasure room' of sorts, but it was still interesting.

"Archaeologists have been trying to figure out what these symbols mean for ages..." Lane commented. "I wonder who put them there." My attention snapped to him, my eyes wide.

"Are you serious." It was more of a statement than a question. "They can't read this? Are you freakin' serious?"

"Uh, yeah. No one can read it. If it's a language of some sort, it's a dead one." Lane said, using a tone of voice that suggested he thought I was being stupid.

"Well, guess what. It's not a dead language anymore. Scoot over, willya?" I said, shouldering him lightly out of the way. It took a moment for me to decipher, having not read Unown for a while, but it came fast. "'Top right, lower left, top right, top left, top left, lower left.' There ya go, translation complete."

Lane stared, disbelieving for a moment, then he grinned. "If you didn't know what it said, you could have just admitted it."

"But I do know," I said very seriously. "It's instructions to a room in the ruins that has more writing and some useful items, if the scientists haven't gotten there first. There's several stairways around here, see? Sometimes there are four to a room, and it makes the way through very annoyingly confusing. This provides an easy way through, as opposed to wandering until you drop."

"Pfft. Nice try. Proof, or it's not true."

"Give me a minute to memorize this, then of course I'll prove it." I stared at the text, going over the words in my head. I'm not very good with short term memory, especially if it's something like directions, so I'd probably just get us lost. "Okay, close as I'll ever get it. Follow me, ye of little faith."

Top right. The first part was easy to remember, and that little room passed in an instant. Lower left. Top right again. Top left. Those rooms were quickly traversed, and now the lower rooms we were in were getting vaguely foggy, small cloudy swirls stirring wherever I moved my feet. The cold was certainly not letting up any, either.

I couldn't remember the next staircase I should take, and when I looked up, I was met with a disturbing sight. There were six stairways. The ruins were clearly much larger than I'd originally known them to be. "Oh, God, what's the next one...top...top..."

"Left. There were two top lefts in the instructions." Lane provided, and I let out a relieved breath. I hadn't known he'd been paying attention to what I'd told him, but I was glad he had. We left the room behind. The last stairway was lower left, and when that was done, instead of seeing the final, largest room, I got another one of the small rooms, much longer than the ones before, with six spread out staircases. At the end, there was some more barely visible Unown text.

"Well? What happened to that room you were talking about?"

"Beats the crud out of me." I answered. My stomach growled audibly, and I mentally slapped my forehead. "Food. Why did you drag me here before the food."

"You keep looking for that room of yours, and I will go get food and bring it back." Lane said. "Sound good?"

"Uh...sure," I agreed. I'd be fine, since I had Kira out with me, and the rest of my team balled but present in the unlikely scenario where I'd need more help than that. "You remember the way back here, right?"

"Yep."

"I won't go much farther, so once you're back just shout and I'll come." I told him, heading to the end of the room, and to the next lines of text. Kira stuck close to my side, occasionally shaking himself to relieve some of the cold. Before I could get very far in translating the words, though, a soft sound came from behind me. It sounded a little like a machine, the way it beeped, but the different tones and smooth transition set it apart. Kira started growling, and when I turned around, there was a single Unown – an O. It stared at me with its single large eye, but made no move to do me harm.

"Uh...hi," I tried, slowly reaching out a hand to touch it. It shot back in its levitating way, making its unusual cry again. More Unown started showing themselves, peeling off the ceiling and coming from the stairs. They started clumping together, until I could make out a word in some of them.

_Outsider._

I tilted my head, a little unnerved by this, but it wasn't too bad. I obviously wasn't a regular to these ruins – of course they would think me to be an outsider. That group split, and a few more Unown cropped up, gathering to spell a new word.

_Demon._

Now I was effectively bothered. They split again, and before I knew it, they were gathering and dispersing over and over to spell more words.

_Wrong._

_ Sick._

_ Misplaced._

_ Unnatural._

_ Bad._

Kira snarled at them rather intimidatingly, and they hovered backwards – they'd been drawing closer to me every time they spelled a word, and frankly I was scared now. What was so bad about what they were talking about? What was so bad about me, if that was their subject?

_Not normal._

_ Broken._

_ You broke it._

They'd started making short sentences, and now it was obvious they were referring to me. "What...what did I break?"

_YOU BROKE IT._

They simultaneously cried as they reassembled the same sentence. The cry started quietly, but grew into a multi-toned chorus of chirps, hums, and beeps. This was more than enough for me, and all I had to do was look at Kira before he tore into the group. Every one of them scattered, disappearing down the hallways farthest from me. The hum faintly continued for another few seconds, then it died away. No sign was left that the Unown had been present at all. I decided to keep my back on the wall and keep watch until Lane got back...just to be safe. I was more than a little shaken.

He didn't keep me waiting for long, coming back in the room with a large paper bag in hand. "Hey, you!" he called, holding up the back. "Food!"

I smiled, some of my paranoia disappearing. It occurred to me that I should have sent Lane with some of my money, to equal out the costs, but when I brought this up he insisted that I drop the subject and let him have paid in peace, or he would do me bodily harm.

"Sorry if you don't like snack food, but that's all they really had there." He tossed something to me – a package of potato chips. I barely managed to catch it, and I grinned.

"You sure you don't have any more sisters? New best friend," I exclaimed, tearing open the bag. "I flippin' _love_ potato chips."

"I'm glad you agree. Now which way?" Lane asked, glancing at me to lead.

"Let me check that." I said, shoving another chip into my mouth. The words on the wall were easy to translate, but there were two blocks of text – one, much more faded, was a few inches beneath the main block. The first said 'top left, top right, lower left'. The bottom said 'middle right, top left, middle left'. I decided to take the top one and come back later to check out the path that faded one marked out.

The path led to the room I knew in the game, opening into a room only a little smaller than my Secret Base. On the wall closest to the stairway, there was more Unown text. I headed over to that, fondly remembering the phrase.

"Friendship; all lives touch other lives to create something anew and alive." Lane shot me yet another lopsided look after this little comment.

"What, is it poetry spouting time?"

"Shut up. It's the translation." I informed him, and I walked to the other end of the room. I couldn't see anything clearly, but a small glint in the dust caught my eye. I kneeled down, and after brushing some dirt away, I found a golden orb about the size of a gumball. I pulled it out of the ground, cleaning off the surface.

Now, normally finding a Nugget would not be a big deal to me, if I was playing the game. But this was the first time I'd handled genuine gold, and this tiny little sphere meant the ability to stuff my face for weeks. I grinned, tucking it in my hoodie's pocket, and I started scooping up loose dust all over. This revealed a faded pinkish-purple stone tablet, some sort of little metal container that smelled...odd, and a CD-looking thing that I recognized at the HM Defog.

I looked back at Lane, who had seen the discoveries and was grinning as much as me. "We sell that stuff, we get rich."

"I like how you think. But let's give the other stuff to the archaeologists, since they are artifacts, I guess. Not the HM, of course." Lane nodded, in agreement with me, and we started making our way back. I stopped him back at the 'intersection' of sorts, and I took off on the other directions.

"H-hey – what are you – wait up!" I slowed until he was with me again, and I couldn't help but notice his hitched breathing – mostly because he was trying so hard to cover it. I pitied him for this – it sounded like he was asthmatic, which I am, but clearly he was either worse than me or just really, really not used to running.

"Sorry. I'll walk." I told him, continuing on. The path took me to a room even tinier than the others. All over its walls was blocks of Unown text, and I kneeled down at the back to start reading. Most of the text was no longer legible, worn and crumbling, but there was a portion I could read, with some difficulty.

I raised an eyebrow at the first line, for irony which you will soon see, and followed along until the text faded away under my fingertips.

_When dreams become real_

_ And dimensions are split_

_ Four lives will be taken_

_ And guarded by the soldier _

_ Of the energy of all creation_

_ Peace will be restored to them_

_ Only by the guardian's hand_

_ The a-_

The text faded off there, giving me no hint as to what that next word night have been. I stared at it, reading and rereading until Lane gave me a gentle shake. "Hannah, you've had more than enough time here. I saw how fast you read the other stuff. C'mon, let's get out of here. It's getting cold." I slowly nodded, getting off my knees and on my feet.

"Okay."


	23. Chapter 22: The Lost Tower

The whole time I've been in Sinnoh I've tried not to take off my hoodie, simply because I'm not built for the kind of cold Sinnoh has year-round, summer or no. The region is a chilly place to me. But when I stepped out of those ruins, I was hit with such a blast of pure _warm_ that I almost melted in the bliss.

Lane pulled off his black shirt and rolled up the long sleeves of the white one underneath, frowning. "Jeez. It's really hot out. Must be a heat wave or something." I basked in the warmth a little longer before I answered.

"No. This is called heaven." I told him, grinning. "This is mild weather where I come from." This got me a shocked look.

"Shut the front door." he exclaimed. It took me a second to understand what he was paraphrasing, but I caught it quickly enough.

"No, seriously. This is nice weather. I don't understand how you think it's hot out. But enough of that, okay? We've checked out the ruins. Let's get some training done. You go battle all the Trainers you can find on Route 209, and when you run out, train in the grass. Level-grinding is your best friend as a Trainer."

"But-" Lane started to protest, crossing his arms. I stared at him in an 'I-dare-you' sort of way over the rims of my glasses. It worked a lot better than I thought it would have, seeing as I'm about as scary as a Togepi. His argumentative expression vanished. "On my way." He turned and headed out, pulling a pokeball from his pocket. I raised my eyebrows.

"Well, then." I commented to myself. I started for the Route a moment later, doing my best to avoid Lane for the time being – I couldn't be too reliant on his company, since he might take off on his own later, once he'd gotten the nerve.

It was still surprisingly early in the morning, considering how much running around Lane and I had done so far. According to my Poketch, it was only 9:50. Dang. I needed to fix this.

A growl from Kira snapped me back to attention, and the grinding began. I didn't really have that much patience for it right then, though, so my team didn't get too many levels before I called it quits and headed back into town.

I found a relatively secluded spot – where no one would see what I was doing – and I pulled out my post-game guide for Heartgold and Soulsilver, just to flip through the pages and check the information on my Pokemon. Nothing much I didn't already know, but it was either flip through the book or just watch as Lane bolted in and out of the city for mid-grinding healings.

It was getting to be later in the afternoon when I switched the book for the laptop, plugged in my earphones, and started typing. And then I got caught.

"What are you doing?" All of a sudden Lane was there, snapping me out of my music-induced focus. "You write?"

I jumped half out of my skin in my hurry to simultaneously shut the computer, pull out my earphones, and sit on the whole bundle. "Nothing!" I yelped, my voice unhelpfully loud.

Lane raised an eyebrow (no fair, I can't do that) and crossed his arms. "Yep. Whatever you say. Very, very inconspicuous. I think this calls for a Question Game."

"But we played that earlier! I don't want to play it again."

"My turn," Lane continued, ignoring my protests. "What were you doing on that laptop?"

I put up one heck of a hissy fit over this, but eventually he got me to answer the question. "I was writing." I said sharply. Who said I had to be specific? "My turn. Why do you want to know?"

"Because you were hiding it, and hiding things gets people curious about it. My turn. What were you writing about?"

"What I've done so far in Sinnoh, nothing much. Can you please just leave it alone?"

"Nope. Can I read what you have?" This time his question didn't sound like he was trying to force an answer out of me. I immediately shook my head.

"Why not?"

"Cause I'm really...I don't...I get really nervous about sharing my stuff. I know it's not horrible stuff but I'm really self-conscious about it anyways. My best friends rarely get this stuff out of me. And no offense intended, but I barely met you a few days ago!"

"But that's what the Question Game's for, right? You said so yourself." Dang. He had me there. I glared at him, but got no negative response.

"Maybe some other time, okay?" I finally said. When I actually trusted him enough, I'd show him what I have written and posted here. But it's pretty ridiculous, no? It would take a lot of proving to convince me to share this. I still get nervous when I post it here.

"Fine." That was the only response I got from Lane, who gestured for me to get up. "Come on. I got some training done. There's still Lost Tower to check out before the day's out, and it's already two." More grumping from me, since we've done a lot today and I'm still sore all over, but it was true. If we nailed Lost Tower now, we wouldn't have missed anything in Solaceon, and we could be off to Veilstone. I think there was something that needed to be done in Lost Tower, too.

The tower was a very quiet place. Nobody was on the first floor, which was occupied only by five gravestones. I felt sort of required to stop and have a moment of silence for them, to think about who they might have been, or whose Pokemon, or whatever. This is a regular thing whenever I see a graveyard – obligatory deep thoughts. I led the way up the first set of steps when I came back to reality. Why Trainers would want to battle in a graveyard tower is beyond me, but they certainly made my way up to the top annoying and long. Lane didn't seem to have any better luck. One little kid had a Stunky, which resulted in that floor – and me – reeking like rotten eggs. Thank you, you stupid child. And Calamity, the evil little turd, kept calling over every Gastly she saw and pointing them in my general direction so they could harass me.

When I got to the top, I saw two old ladies hunched over two graves, dead silent (oh hey, I made a pun! I'm so punny.). I made my way over to them, Lane following me wordlessly. "Excuse me..." I started. One of the ladies turned to face me. "Oh, hello." she said. Her voice shook with the lilt of the aged.

I opened my mouth to say something, but wound up saying nothing. What do you say to elderly ladies who aren't your grandmother? I don't think "Hallo thar" would quite cut it. So much for my default greeting.

"Are you here to pay your respects to the spirits resting here?" one of the old ladies asked. Nothing came out. And then Lane saved me from a very awkward situation. "Yes, ma'am." he answered for me, nodding respectfully.

The other old woman peered at Lane suspiciously, then broke into a semi-toothy grin. "Lane!" she cried. "Come here and give me a hug!" I stood by, self-consciously watching as Lane did as he was told, giving me a look of exasperated apology.

"Hello, grandma. What are you doing here?" he asked, and the old woman suddenly reliquished her death grip on my traveling companion.

"That question should be for you, young man! You know you're not allowed to leave Hearthome! Your poor family must be worried sick! And what if a new he-"

"Grandma, I want you to meet Hannah!" he hurriedly interrupted. Whatever his grandmother had been about to say, he clearly didn't want me hearing. "She's helping me learn about being a Trainer, so I can manage on my own later on. She's my friend." He shot me a questioning look, as if to ask if his calling me a friend was all right by me.

"So she's your friend...who's a girl," his grandma went on, her voice teasing. And Lane popped off on a tangent about how the woman was always teasing him and singling him out and how she never messed with his sisters half as much as with him. It took everything I had not to just die laughing from both embarrassment and amusement.

When this finally died down, the other old woman was laughing so hard she broke into a coughing fit, Lane looked ready to murder someone, and his grandmother looked strangely smug. "Well, young man, if you insist on risking life and limb by being a Trainer, I may as well do what I can to prevent the worst from coming to you." From her pocket she pulled a silver CD, with 'Strength' printed on the side. "Use this HM. It's a good, strong move. Your Pokemon will be able to better protect you."

Lane accepted the disc a bit grudgingly. "Thank you grandma. But I really will be fine. I've been fine my whole life, haven't I?"

"You've been in Hearthome doing harmless Contests your whole life, haven't you?"

"That's beside the point!" And it launched off again, leaving me once more as a spectator to the conflicts of the Dorin family.


	24. Chapter 23: Veilstone City, Part Uno

Two days. That was all the grinding time Lane allowed me before he insisted that we go on to Veilstone City. It was a bad day for traveling, too. The sky was dark with the looming threat of storms in the near future. But somehow, my team and I were up at the ungodly hour of six in the morning to get a move on, thanks to Lane and Yoshika. The Cubone had refused to stop whaling on the door to my room until I came out, looking less than attractive with my rat's nest of hair and my dirty hoodie.

Lane was already in the front room with his other two teammates out and beside him, looking all set to go. He looked much better off than I was – heck, from what I've seen so far, he must roll out of bed looking like the perfect Trainer posterchild. I'm yet to see him get dirty.

"Come on, Hannah. We've been here for plenty of time," he complained, and I shot him possibly the most evil death glare I've made yet. He was undaunted, but this look bought me enough time to get breakfast from the local store.

This was all my stalling time, up. Lane literally yanked me for a few feet to get the point across that he really, really wanted to get going. In case you people haven't noticed yet, I'm a zombie in the mornings; not quite dead, but definitely not alive. I remained this way for almost two hours, which was how long it took me to plow through the local Trainers again, catch a Kricketune for the PC boxes, and be on my merry way to the next route.

The clouds opened up and poured on our heads for pretty much the rest of the day. I had my hood up, but it did little to stop my imminent soaking. It took a lot of rearranging in my backpack to ensure that my laptop didn't get wet too. Lane got the same fate as me, which felt a little like revenge for my early awakening. He looked like a drowned rat, but he looked cheerful anyways, as if he didn't quite notice that he was drenched.

The Trainers on the hilly route, mostly martial artists, were disposed of quickly enough by either me and Calamity or Lane and Corona. It was ridiculously hard to navigate the route for several reasons I have already mentioned; it was pouring buckets (thanks, Kyogre...), I was still in zombie-mode, climbing of the stupid roughly hewn stairs, and the fact Lane was some dozen yards ahead of me at any given time.

It was still pouring when we got to Veilstone City at roughly nine, and only then did Lane slow enough for me to catch up with him. We both made a mad, sprinting, skidding dash for the Pokecenter, simply because it had a roof. Long story short – we couldn't find it, and we both gave out under the eaves of somebody's house. We didn't have much stretching space, but it was better to pass out there than in the rain.

We were both quiet for a while, catching our breath, and again I noticed that Lane sounded a lot worse than me. It was concerning, but he'd made it very clear that he didn't want me nosing around in his issues.

"You gonna challenge the Gym Leader?" I asked, trying to break the silence. He shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe. Not sure if I've trained enough yet."

"Oh, come on. Maylene uses Fighting types and you have an Alakazam. Flooring that Gym will be as easy as falling off a log."

"I don't feel like falling off that log right now. I'd rather go mess around at the Game Corner," he answered, flashing a grin. "I'm good at those." I waved it off.

"You do that, then. I'm going to go try and find the Pokecenter or an umbrella, whichever comes first." Then I bolted off, leaving him sitting under the overhang. I found the Pokecenter first, which I used to heal my Pokemon (none of them but Dazzle had wanted to be in the rain except for battles, so they were all balled minus her), and after some quick interrogation I had directions to the Veilstone mall. I could reload on good stuff there. Food, pokeballs, healing items, maybe a few TMs. And thankfully, I'd replenished my almost-nonexistent funds via the route Trainers.

Dazzle was running on all fours beside me, and I noticed it again. I've never mentioned it here, but Dazzle's been partial to her left arm since she broke it. When she evolved, it was still healing, but apparently the evolution healed it on the spot. But it might have been healed wrong, because she rarely uses that arm for much more than gentle tapping and non-physical moves. This was a little concerning, but my Floatzel seemed to be fine with it. I shook it off, heading into the mall.

Malls in America had nothing on this place. The first floor was relatively empty of merchandise, but it clearly had good customer service – the instant I stepped in the door, I was offered a towel. I gratefully took it, attempting to make myself less drenched, then I offered it to Dazzle. She snorted at it, stepped back outside, and shook herself off. Of course, the pouring rain completely negated any effect this method might have had, but Dazzle looked satisfied with her method, and marched right back up beside me. Yet again, it took all I had not to laugh at the antics of my Pokemon.

The lady who'd handed me the towel openly laughed, though it wasn't mean. She told me I could keep the towel for as long as I was in the store, so I planned to stay a while.

The second floor's helpful worker gave me a Counter app for my Poketch. I wasn't sure what I'd use it for, but now I had an excuse to not do math myself, and I always welcome those. But that floor was for things like stat boosters, and not only am I short on cash for that sort of thing, I had no real need for them. My team kills everything like a bunch of bosses. Well, at least everything wild. Ahaha.

Third floor, TMs. This was where I wanted to spend my money. Epic moves equal epic wins, and epic wins equals more food money. Out came the Pokedex, and I turned it on, switching to the option that showed my team's stats.

Calamity would definitely need something. Her moveset was kind of lacking for a Gengar – Confuse Ray, Payback, Sucker Punch, and Night Shade. And maybe I could get Dazzle Hydro Pump or something. Kira could use Thunder, which I was pretty sure they'd have. I wanted nothing different on Credere's moveset. His was perfect – Headbutt, AncientPower, Fire Blast, and Dig. He was prepared for pretty much any type that came at him.

I checked the nearest occupied counter, and the clerk present gave me a warm smile. "How may I help you?"

"Um, what all TMs do you have?" I asked, my nervousness kicking back in. I've mentioned this a million times, but I'll say it again – I'm really really awkward with socialization.

"Well, what kind are you looking for?" the clerk asked, reaching beneath the counter. "Here's what we have, at least at this counter." He pulled out several discs, each shimmering faintly in a color that indicated its type. Printed on the side of each were the names of moves I knew well. Fire Blast, Thunder (YES), Blizzard, Solar Beam, Hyper Beam, and Focus Blast.

I grinned, reaching out to pull the ones I wanted toward me. "Thunder, Hyper Beam, Focus Blast, and...Blizzard." Focus Blast would be a defense against Dark types for Calamity. Thunder would be a murder move for Kira. Hyper Beam I'd use for Dazzle. I'm not really a fan of moves you have to rest a turn after, but it would be a good move, no doubt. As for Blizzard, I'm not totally sure why I got it. Dragon types are only weak to themselves and Ice, so I suppose I could use it for whenever it was neccesary.

I handed over the money, a little worried about how large of a chunk it had taken from my funds, but I shook it off – I still had around 25,000 left. In this world, that's about the equivalent of 2,500 dollars, so I guess I was pretty well off. That would buy me plenty of on-the-road snacks.

Fourth floor was for home furnishings – in my head, that meant 'Secret Base decorations'. And I treated it as such. Turns out they actually have this nifty little teleporter thing that will actually send the things you buy straight to your home or base, and I abused this by getting a bunch of stuff, like one of those miniature refrigerators and a cheap TV and a bookcase I'd probably load down with crap I didn't need. One of the other counters had stuffed animals, though.

Normally I wouldn't look for more than a few minutes at such a stall when I had this much money, but they had a little Riolu. And next thing I knew it was in my hands, paid for, and I was on my way to the next floor.

The next floor, five, was much smaller than the other floors, had a few little resturants, vending machines, and a load of tables and chairs. I was very glad to find that food court, because my banana from earlier was not holding me over. I found a relatively empty corner of the room before releasing my team, and I told them to stay put and behave themselves while I got food. Of course, Calamity ignored me and proceeded to gleefully terrify any customer who came too close, and Credere turned his nose up at me. Kira was the only one who really obeyed, but his obedience came only from a sort of respect. I always got the feeling that he thought of our relationship as that between an employer and worker – he obeyed me, and reaped the benefits of being able to travel and get stronger. Dazzle was the only one who seemed to genuinely appreciate my presence, but even she probably had some ulterior motive for that. It was kind of disheartening, now that I thought about it.

The food court was relatively crammed, but I still managed to get the food and get back in a hurry. I dished it out, dropping myself into one of the chairs afterwards. Dazzle came to nudge me and ask for petting, which I quietly gave her. The silence between all of us persisted until I heard a familiar voice call my name.

"Hannah! Hey!" I looked up, and there was Lucas. I smiled. "Hey, you! It's been a while!" But he didn't look pleased. More worried, in fact.

"Hannah, you've got to help us out! Barry and I have been trying to beat them, but we can't do it all ourselves! Team Galactic stole Dawn's Pokemon!"


	25. Chapter 24: Butt Kicking Interval

Screw my pizza. Those idiots took Dawn's Pokemon. I was up and out the door with Lucas in a matter of minutes. All my Pokemon except Dazzle went back into their pokeballs the instant they finished their meal, and I quickly dropped off my towel at the front counter before heading back into the downpour with Lucas. My Riolu toy disappeared into my hoodie's pocket before Lucas could see it, too.

"Over this way!" he told me, running off in the direction of the warehouse. I knew it was their warehouse for one reason – it was right next to the strangely designed building I knew was their headquarters. Other than that, I never would have recognized the warehouse as Galactic's. Lucas skidded to a stop next to a soaked blonde, who gave me a quick, mischevious grin.

"Heya, Hannah-banana. Welcome to the party!" he exclaimed, instantly drawing an irritated frown from me. "Don't call me Hannah-banana."

"Whatever you say, Hannah-banana." Barry answered, snickering. Then Dawn backhanded him. I hadn't seen her before that, but I was glad she was there. "Don't bug Hannah," she snapped. "Team Galactic can't get away with this!"

I nodded. "What she said! Now point me towards whoever needs their butt kicked!" Barry raised his hand, bobbing his head in agreement with my words. Lucas shook his head.

"It's not that easy. They aren't that strong separately, but together, the numbers are too much for any one of us alone to take. We have to be carefu- Barry! Get back here!" he started, only to wind up pursuing the overeager blonde into the warehouse. Dawn offered me a nervous smile.

"Well, looks like it's just us. Let's pretend we don't know them, okay?" she said, and I couldn't help but laugh in response. This twelve-year-old girl must be my long-lost sister. I nodded to answer her joking question.

"How did your Pokemon get stolen, anyways?" I quipped. Dawn looked at the ground, her expression a mix of shame and sadness.

"I wasn't careful. I was battling a bunch of them out on one of the routes – they looked like they were headed for Pastoria City – and they ganged up on me. And they took my Pokemon, and they ran back here. I mean, I have other Pokemon in my PC that I could use, but..." She looked very pathetic, standing there in the rain, soaking wet, wearing that grieved look.

I nodded. "I get it. They're friends. My team may not think of me as their friend, but I think of them as such. I would hate it if I lost them. Now come on, let's go kick some butt." Dazzle whooped beside me, fist-pumping into the air much in the manner I did after winning a tough battle. It was sort of gratifying to see.

Dawn nodded, waiting for me to lead. I was confused by this until it hit me – I was the one with the Pokemon. She couldn't go herself without risking being hurt by any particularly sadistic grunt. I needed to escort her to the boys, who had long since disappeared into the building.

"Okay, come on." I said. I sprinted for the warehouse, sick of being wet. The instant I was in there, I was jumped by a duo of grunts. "You'll never get past us!"

Oh, please. Kira and Dazzle completely overkilled their pokemon. Now I wouldn't mention this tiny battle if it weren't for one thing. I now had a Luxray. Kira was now freaking epic. This left only Credere unevolved on my team, but I doubted he'd be bothered by such a thing.

After some eight hundred grunt battles (Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little) the two of us relocated the boys, near the back of the warehouse. Standing before them with an angry looking Purugly was my old pal Mabs. I mean Mars. Both seemed panicked. No way had Mars beaten them both...

"Sup, guys! What's the problem?" I called, ignoring the death glare I received from Mars as I drew closer.

"You're that brat who messed up our plans at the Valley Windworks!" she hissed. I shrugged, and though I'm still not sure where I got the nerve from, I'm happy I said what I did.

"That'd be me. Problem?"

"You little- battle!" Mars snapped, and I was only happy to oblige her. Kira took care of her first two Pokemon – Zubat and Stunky – before I pulled him back and let Credere handle the Purugly. It was finished before very long, only a few Headbutts were required. Mars gave me one last baleful look before hurling four pokeballs into the air, letting them clatter to the ground. "I will avenge this," she told me. Smoke filled the room, and the Galactic members disappeared.

Dawn bolted forward, scooping up the pokeballs eagerly. "I thought I'd lost you guys! I'm sorry! I'll never let it happen again..." Barry struck a pose. "Once again, Team Epicsauce wins the day!" Lucas just stared behind my shoulder, his mouth slightly open. "Um..."

I stared back, confused. "What is it?" I turned, looking myself, and I was shocked by what I saw. I'd never really expected it to happen, but...

I now had a Rampardos.

Now, I'm not sure if anyone can relate to this exact case, but I was proud of my team. All fully evolved, all capable of handing a rival's butt to them on a silver platter. All caught and raised from a weaker state. Now, I know I have an advantage over other people because of what I know about Pokemon, but it was still tough to get these guys where they are. It paid off. That warm accomplished feeling hasn't left yet.

The other two DexHolders looked over, and Barry shot me a thumbs up. "Nice going, Hannah-banana!" Dawn smiled.

"THIS CALLS FOR CELEBRATION!" I cringed at the sound of Barry's yelling. "We totally whooped rear in here, and Dawn has her Pokemon, and that Cranidos evolved!" Lucas held up a hand to object, looking confused.

"Um, Barry, the two of us got floored with Mars..."

"Okay, let's add that to the list! To the mall, people, we're getting fast food!" The hyper blonde announced, marching out of the building. Dawn stared after his receding form for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Oh, Arceus, he hasn't changed a bit! And here I am getting all mopey! Come on, Lucas, Hannah. There's fast food to be had!" She clipped her pokeballs back onto her bag, waving for us to follow. Lucas and I only exchanged quick glances before following.

We got to the mall in time to catch Barry, and up to the food court we went. It was kind of nice, actually. The four of us were just talking and joking and having a good time. It was a little like being home, getting to hang out with the friends that I no longer could contact. (Yes, I've tried.)

"Guys, why do you think Team Galactic is stealing Pokemon?" It was worth a try. I wanted to know how they thought of the situation. All three turned to give me questioning glances.

"Why such a serious question?" Dawn asked, tilting her head. I shrugged. After a moment, she answered. "To terrorize the public, mostly. I think they've got another reason too, one that I don't know." Lucas and Barry nodded in agreement.

Well, they were right about that, at least. The team's ulterior motive was not at all a good one. I was almost glad it was Dawn who had to fix the mess on Spear Pillar instead of me. My thoughts were promptly interrupted by my name being called, this time not by any of the three beside me.

"Hey, Lane," I called back, waving to the gray-haired youth. He jogged up to us, smiling with a bit of confusion.

"I recognize you, Dawn, but what about these two?" he asked, gesturing to Lucas and Barry. Dawn looked shocked.

"What are you doing here? I thought you stayed in Hearthome!"

"Um, no. I've been traveling with Hannah for a few days. Now..." He glanced at the two boys. "May I have the pleasure of knowing your names?"

"Lucas Diamond," Lucas said. "I'm Professor Rowan's lab assistant. I'm out traveling to help fill his Pokedex."

"And I'm Barry Pearl!" Barry announced, his voice a few decibels too loud. "I'm helping too but mostly I'm battling and trying to get all the badges!" Lane nodded.

"Lane Dorin. I'm a Coordinator from Hearthome. I'm having a try at being a Trainer." Lane said, his smile becoming genuine. "So now I've met all the DexHolders. Aren't I lucky!"

Dawn shook her head. "Oh, no, we're...we're nothing special compared to some of the DexHolders from other regions."

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. Dawn, we are the perfect example of sheer awesomeness!" Barry contradicted, again striking a ridiculous pose. This dissolved the rest of us into giggles.

The day continued in much the same manner, but all of us stuck together, getting soaked in the raid, fighting over the last slice of pizza, wincing at Barry's spontaneous bouts of excited yelling. These guys are my friends. I realize that now. Not my superiors, not my rivals. I can fall back on them if I have to, and they've proven that they think they can do the same with me, which is true. And now, Sinnoh seems a little bit brighter, now that I'm not alone.

In a sense, I never was.


	26. Chapter 25: When I Can't Win

Our little group split paths before yesterday was up, leaving us all to our own tasks again. For me, this meant a few different things – level-grinding, beating Maylene for my third badge, and dealing with Mavis.

Oh, right, Mavis. I haven't mentioned her yet. Apparently when Lane was trolling the slot machines at the Game Corner, he earned a ton of coins, and cashed them in for some Pokemon – a Munchlax and an Eevee. From what he told me, those took a lot of coins to get, and that's the only reason there were any left. He named the Munchlax Ross and the Eevee Mavis, which is sort of ironic for me since I have an original character by the same name – Mavis, I mean.

However, while Ross was bro-ing it up with his new Trainer, Mavis did not like him. She preferred to annoy the bajeezus out of me and have rides in the hood of my hoodie. I tolerated this since she was pretty cute, but before long she wanted nothing to do with Lane and everything to do with me, so Lane gave her to me. I offered to trade, but he didn't want to.

So now I have a mischevious Eevee to put up with. There's something kind of different about her. She's like Dazzle. She actually likes to be around me, and though she has a very odd way of showing it, she's affectionate towards me.

The first thing on my to-do list was getting Dazzle and Calamity up to level 30 with Credere and Kira. I would get Mavis to the same level, but I'd rather enjoy playing with her before I throw her into the violent side of being a Trainer. Once that was done, Maylene was going down. Lane decided to set himself on roughly the same goal, but not as high a level – he didn't plan to challenge any of the Gym Leaders anytime soon. He probably just felt like he needed to prove he wasn't being lazy.

The Trainers on Route 214 were whipped solidly, and it gained me the levels I needed to take on the Gym Leader. I met up with Lane a little later to let him know where I'd be, healed my Pokemon, and into the Gym I went.

The place was full of punching bags and tire stacks. I didn't quite understand why it was necessary to knock down the tires with the punching bags, exactly, but I really didn't care. The first punching bag was pretty much directly in front of the Gym's entrance, so I approached it and attempted to do the normal thing – _punch_ it to make it move. It did very little, and I could just feel the eye-rolling going on from the nearby Gym Trainers. Eventually I wound up flinging myself against it to make it move. The sad part? That just barely got it going, and it took another forceful shove to make it successfully reach the other side and topple the tires. If any of my Pokemon had been out, they either would have laughed, or taken care of the punching bags for me. Then laughed.

The Gym Trainers were managed relatively quickly, and after much tripping, failure, and utter humiliation via the punching bags, I made it to the back and to Maylene. She had apparently been watching me the whole time, judging from the look of disdain in her eyes. Heck, she almost looked like she pitied me. I took this offensively, though I didn't say a thing.

"So you're Hannah?" she questioned. I nodded. She put a hand on her hips. "You don't look like much. Roark and Gardenia were either misleading me, or your looks say nothing about your skill." I decided that I disliked this Gym Leader. I could tell she wasn't trying to be offensive, but that was the exact way it hit me. I could respect that she spoke her mind, but I didn't have to like it.

"What exactly did they say?"

"Well, Gardenia said you were...tenacious. Roark said you were a good battler, if a little obnoxious."

This reply did not surprise me. Gardenia I haven't seen since I left Eterna, but very often when I go to the Underground, I cross paths with Roark. I may not have mentioned it, but I'm down there for the greater part of my free time, either decking out my not-so-secret-anymore Secret Base, typing up these chapters, or engaging in some 'friendly rivalry' with the first Gym Leader. We both act relatively unkindly to each other, snapping and bickering and boasting. Obnoxious is one of Roark's favorite words for me. But under the harsh words there's a friendship – we're frienemies. We steal each other's Flags all the time just to irritate the other, but we've just talked and swapped stories, too.

"Well, I like to think that I don't suck." I replied, my voice sounding a little resentful despite my best efforts to sound indifferent.

"I suppose we'll find out, won't we?" She gave me an impatient look, and shortly following, we battled. For a week following, on and off, I repetitively challenged her, my team being constantly swept by her Lucario, even if I managed to get past her Machoke and Meditite no problem. After that first battle, she didn't even greet me with words, instead just releasing her first Pokemon. This was just a _little_ discouraging. And to top it all off, the instant Credere hit level 31, he embraced his disobedience again.

By the end of that week, I just plain quit trying to beat her. I took up visiting the Underground through much of the day hours, and as a result, my Secret Base became amazing. Credere cleared out most of the obstructive boulders. Most of the things from my backpack now make their home on the empty bookshelves. My laptop now lives safely on top of a desk at the back, and when I'm gone it's hidden under the cushions of a worn couch I got. Not that anybody knows where the base is, though, if you don't count Roark. It's pretty well hidden.

Okay, story intervention time. Do any of you remember way back when Roark explained to me how the Underground worked? I thought I was being oh so clever by quietly tailing him and locating his base. Well, turns out my stealth skills, put together, amount to nada. He had picked up on that little fact very quickly, and followed _me_ back to _my_ base when I created it to get back at me. So, yeah. I did not win that fight. He informed me of this a while ago, and even now, I have to resist facepalming at the memory of my idiocy.

On another note, Lane had mostly been doing his own thing and impatiently awaiting my victory at the Gym, which was probably not going to come anymore. He met up with me from time to time, asked about my Gym battles, then we just swapped the basic buddy info – where the other had been, what they'd done, the like. Then we'd go get food and split again. He didn't seem bored, just eager to get moving again.

And then one time he came down to the Underground with me.

"Oh, come on, you spend all day there and I've never been!" His complaints were just annoying me. "You tell me about it all the time, and you bring your Pokemon down with you, and-"

"You talk too much." I grumbled. Lane huffed indignantly at this, but didn't deny it. "The Underground isn't your kind of place, okay? I still get a little edgy down there if I don't keep my imagination on a very short leash."

"You don't know that! I could love that place and I'd never know because you aren't letting me go." He crossed his arms, looking more like he was six than sixteen.

"One, I'm not your mother, so I'm not stopping you, I'm advising you against going. Two, you're acting very childishly right now. Three, your asthma is going to give you all sorts of crap. The ladder down isn't short, it's dusty and stagnant down there, it's dark, and the ground gets rough sometimes and makes it tough going." I told him, ticking off the numbers on my fingers.

"It isn't asthma," he snapped. Judging from the 'wait, what' look that crossed his face after he said that, he hadn't meant to say it. I raised my eyebrows at him, and he resumed his pouty face. "Just let me come, okay? It's not like it's gonna kill me."

A long pause, then I caved. "Fine. You steal my Flag, I steal your Pokemon, capiche?"

"I don't have a base. There's no reason for me to steal it." I ignored this comment, instead heading for the Veilstone entrances to the Underground, delivering swift kicks to two of them. I swung myself into one, gesturing for Lane to take the other. Then I started down, again taking joy in how little my backpack troubled me, now that it was all but empty. All that was in there now were my changes of clothes, my team's pokeballs, and anything else I had gotten here in Sinnoh.

I was down at the bottom quickly enough, the small jolt from the fall sending a flash of pain through my sore body. I then paced over to the tube that I knew had Lane, and peered up. I couldn't see a thing, but I called up anyways. "Hey, you! You asleep up there?"

"I'm coming, okay? Shut up!" The echoes told me he was still about halfway up. I'll admit this got me testy – I hate waiting on people, since usually I'm the one people are waiting on. Some five minutes later I saw his shoes, and I backed away from the hole. Another minute brought him dangling from the last rung, and bam, onto the ground he went, face-first.

"A ten for grace," I said dryly, clapping. He quickly popped back to his feet, scowling. The scowl was quickly swapped for a blank expression as he looked around at the rocky walls.

"Wow. The way you described this place made it seem a lot cooler than it is." He took a few steps away from the tubes, examining the hall. Then he glanced back to me, quirking an eyebrow. "Can I see your Secret Base?"

I grumbled a little, but led the way, guiding him around the traps I'd buried near my base. The hole was clearly open, but since it wasn't all that huge, it was easy to conceal and a little cumbersome to get through if you were much larger than I am. I stepped through, heading immediately to the couch and pulling out my laptop to set up in its place on the desk. Lane followed with a little more difficulty. Now he actually seemed kind of surprised. "Huh. This isn't too bad."

As I headed for the desk, something seemed off. I only realized what it was once I set my computer down and opened it. The place on the left side of the desk was where I usually kept my Flag. It was empty. I stared for a moment, then the name slammed into my mind. "Roark." I stated quietly, narrowing my eyes. I knew where to find him later, so I could pummel his-

"Hannah!" Lane yelped, sounding alarmed. There was a faint scuffling sound, and I turned just in time to see that red-headed Leader disappear out of the entrance. A quick look over to the side told me that he had been hiding beside the bookshelf, just out of my range of sight. Apparently we'd caught him mid-theft.

"Who was that?" Lane demanded, but he got no response from me. I was already bolting for the exit, pursuing my Flag. Roark had not picked a good time to antagonize me – I was tired, sore, annoyed, lacking in what little morale and self-confidence I usually had, and I was in an overall pissy mood.

"Get back here, you rockhead!"

Yeah, I'm amazing with insults, aren't I.


	27. Chapter 26: A Peptalk and Revenge

I lost Roark somewhere around the millions of turns and twists in the hallways, thanks to my own lack of stamina. I slowed, panting, and listened as the footsteps disappeared. Another set paced up behind me, and when I turned, there was Lane, looking very baffled.

"No, seriously. Who was that and what was he doing in your base?"

I stood back upright, glancing over to him. "That would be Roark. He's one of the Gym Leaders. First one I battled. I had that coming, really...there was no way he was going to let me keep that higher score of Flag steals..."

"Why, thank you for that detailed explanation. I don't want to be a pain, but could you elaborate a little more?" Lane prodded, sounding a little impatient.

"Roark. Gym Leader in Oreburgh City, not quite as well-known as some because he's still relatively new. He's the one I battled for my first Badge. He also showed me around the Underground. Since then we've been in a bit of a Flag-stealing war. We're kind of enemies, I think we're kind of friends too. We got to my base while he was stealing my Flag. Eventually I will get it back, since I only have one and he can't keep rubbing it in my face if he keeps it, so...yeah." I explained, exhaling sharply at the end.

Lane didn't respond for a bit, slowly crossing his arms. "You sound bitter. What's got you all tied up?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because I'm traveling with you and I don't want to be traveling with a grouch. Now why are you so irritable?"

"Let's see. I only got my butt kicked some...six, seven times by Maylene in the past few days, Credere is suddenly being ridiculously disobedient, I'm sore and tired, I've got to support my whole team and myself on my dwindling supply of cash, and in case you hadn't noticed, I've got one helluva inferiority complex and none of this is helping it get better!"

Lane tried for a sympathetic look, but it just came out looking disbelieving. "You didn't think being a Trainer was going to be all rainbows and butterflies, did you?"

"That's what I was led to believe, yes, and before I got thrown into this I was possibly the laziest girl on the face of the planet! I'm having some difficulty adjusting!"

"Pfft...and here I was thinking you had more nerve than that." He shook his head, smirking in a sort of disdainful way. "I've handled more than that no problem."

"I don't think you quite understand what I mean," I hissed, seething. He just turned his navy eyes on me, his look degrading.

"Okay, look. I've gotten this same talk before, so I'll pass it on to you. There was this one time, about a year or two ago, when I just _couldn't_ win a Contest, no matter how hard I tried. Got my sorry butt in dead last for probably twelve different Contests in a row, after putting in all the work I could to get a better score. I was pissed off and ready to drop the whole Coordinator thing. I learned to make Poffins because of it, got a bit more of a fashion sense than guys usually have, and it didn't do squat. Then I got pulled over by a...rival of mine. Yes, let's call him that. And he more or less slapped some sense into me and demanded that I keep trying because I wasn't giving him a challenge anymore, and no one likes a mope. So I tried again."

"And did you win?"

"Nnnope!" Lane answered firmly. "I proceeded to get whipped for quite a few more times before I could pull my way out of last. And that whole time I was being a grouchy, mopey, irritable jerk. But I did eventually get out of that rut, and then I looked back on that span of time. And I wanted to bang my head against a wall. All I had been doing was making it worse for myself by getting annoyed by it. And I will still be a jerk when things don't go my way, but it happens a whole lot less now, because I recognize that it's stupid and pointless and soon will be humiliating to remember. So I suggest you snap out of it, deal with the present, and get back down to business."

All he'd really done was provoked me further, and while I could vividly picture my hands around his neck, I could also see the sense in his words. I hate it when people are being logical and are completely right. But did he have to do it in such a condescending way?

"Yes, I can tell that you'd like to throw me off a cliff right now," Lane said, the smirk turning into a bit more of a smile. "But seriously. You're just going to drive everyone off acting the way you are. That's no fun."

I huffed. "Fine. How do you suggest I stop failing, then, oh mighty Contest Master?"

"Well, I watched to see what the other Coordinators were doing right and I was doing wrong. Once I picked that up, pretty soon I was back and giving them a run for their money." He shrugged. "Should have thought of it earlier, actually. It was kind of obvious. Now come on, I want to go back to the base." He turned, casually strolling back through the halls and disappearing around one of the corners. I stood there and wallowed in my own self-pity for a few minutes following, all the while inwardly fantasizing about backhanding Lane to next week, and then I gradually began thinking sensibly again.

He was actually right. Maylene was clearly flooring me because I was doing something wrong. It wasn't like she was undefeatable. I had already seen the names of several challengers and Lucas and Barry on that pedestal at the front. I just had to figure out what I was doing wrong, exactly.

I reached into the pocket of my hoodie, pulling out the only pokeball that didn't go in my backpack – Mavis's. She was out in a brief flash of light, and in an instant she had jumped into my arms, pawing me with her claws extended. From the look on her face, it was hard to tell if she was intentionally trying to claw me.

"Hey, puffball. What do you think I'm doing wrong?" It was stupid asking, since Mavis wouldn't give me a comprehensible answer, and to be honest I wasn't sure if she was _smart_ enough to give an intelligent answer. She just purred, pulling herself up to my shoulder, then crawling into my hood, which I had to quickly adjust to prevent being choked. More huffing. "Thanks, Mave."

I headed back for my Secret Base, and as I ducked inside, I found my Flag – a simple bluish-purple square of cloth – lying just inside. I picked it up, heading to the back of the room to put it back in its rightful place. Apparently Roark had dropped it back off. I turned to see Lane sitting on the couch, flipping between the three channels on the crappy little TV I'd gotten. Arceus knows how it gets service down here. Then an idea came to me, creeping in tentatively.

"Hey, Lane..." I started. He acknowledged me with a short 'Hmm?', glancing over his shoulder to look my way. "You think you can hold up for a little running? I'm gonna go get some payback. You want to come?"

He didn't seem to understand this until I gestured toward my Flag, then he lit up. "Payback, you say? Capture the Flag, you say? Why, I think I can manage a little running." He grinned at me, a look full of mischief, and all of a sudden I wasn't so confident about turning my back on him. That look was not faked.

"Then let's go. Just be very, very quiet, because he's probably expecting me to pull this." Mavis huffed in my ear, sticking her paws in my hair and tangling it hopelessly. "And you, quit that," I added, wincing. "That hurts."

Lane openly laughed at me, stepping through the base's entrance with a little difficulty. "Well, come on. I don't know where to go." I hopped out and led the way, the whole time with my hands behind my head and separating my Eevee from my hair. I dropped them when the task was done, and by that time I was only a few underground 'blocks' from his base. I assumed stealth mode (which is a synonym for walking in a stupid manner without actually being quieter, in my case) and came up close, peering inside the entrance briefly before snapping my head back. From what I could see, no Roark.

I looked back to Lane, whose expression spoke clearly for him. He thought I was acting like an idiot. But it was more teasing than unkind, so all was well. I stepped into the entrance, which was considerably larger than my own base's, and peered around. In full honesty, I didn't much like how it was set out. It was considerably smaller than my base, for one. Several shelves were present, all loaded with Spheres and Fossils and whatever interesting tidbits might be found in the Underground. There was a couch on one side, and next to it was a pile of cushions that I knew was usually occupied by Roark's Cranidos. At the back was a desk with a PC – not a pretty, neat, folding laptop like mine – and beside it was the dark gray triangular Flag that belonged to my frienemy. Lane popped in after me, took a moment to examine the base, then he headed to the back, gesturing to the Flag in a questioning manner. I nodded, stealing to the back and picking it up.

Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. I only had a moment to register the sound of the footsteps and shoot a panicked look in Lane's direction, only to realize he'd already hidden. Roark appeared in the doorway, shock registering on his face for a minute.

"Hey!" he snapped suddenly, bolting for me to take the Flag back. It took some awkward dives, narrow recoveries from being tripped, and a set of protesting lungs before I got back to the entrance and had room to flee. The bad part is that Roark's a whole lot faster than me and he knows it, so unless I pulled some sort of trick out of my sleeve, he was going to catch me.

A few hallways and annoyingly sharp turns later, my lungs were attempting to mutiny, and no matter how deep of a breath I took, it was never enough. I took another corner, and spotted a hole in the wall – for all I knew, it was another Secret Base, or it was a wall that caved after a failed excavation. I gratefully ducked into it, almost squishing Mavis as I turned. It was only about two feet deep, but it was enough. I was able to hold my breath just until Roark zipped by and vanished, then the gasping came. But it was too funny not to grin at. I'd stolen the Flag clean from under his nose. Once I'd gotten my breath back, I made my way back in the general direction of the Gym Leader's base, and met up with Lane along the way.

I triumphantly held up the flag, grinning. He grinned back. "I take it you're in a better mood now?"

"Yep. I'm still mad at you, though, don't get me wrong."

"Well, good, that's what I was going for." This comment caught me off guard, and my expression must've showed it, because he laughed.

"From what I've seen and heard, you only stick up for yourself when you're angry and you're trying to prove something to somebody. So I figured if I riled you up, it would motivate you out of your self-pity. Boom. And guess what? I was right!" Lane struck a ridiculous pose, drawing a sort of purring laughter from Mavis, who now had her forepaws and head resting on my shoulder.

"Oh, fine. It worked. But never again will you out-think me, you hear?"

"Sure, yeah, whatever you say – OW!"

"And that was for being obnoxious."


	28. Chapter 27: Pastoria Marsh

_**Okay, OOC apology time. Normally I wouldn't say anything OOC in one of the chapters, but I have to apologize for the lateness of this update. School and life in general sort of caught up to me, and my inspiration decided to ditch me and take a siesta. Ahaha...Well, I've had this chapter half-written for a while now, and things are going to start picking up from here on out~ Thank you so much for supporting me so much and reading this far! I started this story just as a sort of drabble to test myself, see if I'd be able to keep my interest in a story long enough to write something I could publish. Thanks to all of your kind words and reviews, I've gotten so much farther on this than I ever thought I would, and I've even started writing a completely original story! While I may not post new chapters quite as often as I did before, due to the mountains of homework the first year of highschool is giving me, I'll do my best to never take as long as of an unwarned hiatus as I just did. **_

_** Well, that's about it! I look forward to finishing this story and continuing on with its planned sequel~ God bless, and enjoy **__**When Dreams Become Real**__**!**_

…...

I'm not even going to justify my defeat of Maylene with a battle chapter. I'm still pretty ill-disposed toward her right now, see. And there's more urgent matters I have to get to, so I'll speed this up a little – cue 'long story short' mode.

I beat Maylene five days and six defeats after the last update was put up here. It was narrow, almost lost, but it came down to Dazzle and the Lucario and Dazzle pulled through. I got the next Badge, and I got to Pastoria, after a few uneventful days of travel in which Lane talked my ear off. I was ambushed by Barry again for a battle, which I lost. Lane's team got much stronger – Yoshika evolved, Ross evolved, and his other two Pokemon got some serious levels. As for my team, much the same happened, but Mavis remained my non-battling baby.

Okay, now that that's established, the important stuff. I've come to the conclusion that I am not, in fact, in the game. Either I'm dreaming or I'm mentally screwed up or this is a real world that I somehow got to; all of these explanations would make everything make sense, such as Lane's existence and how everyone here has such real personalities and speak so freely.

Why I've come to this conclusion? The events of Diamond and Pearl are not waiting for Dawn and Lucas' arrival, like in-game. They trigger only when the protagonist completes certain tasks and arrives at certain areas, yes? Wrong. Lake Valor is nothing but a gathering of puddles, scorch marks, and beached Magikarp. I'll go ahead and start for real when I found all this out.

…...

"Hannah, get out of there! You promised we'd go check out the marsh today!" Lane rapped impatiently on the door to my tiny room at the Pastoria Pokecenter. It was day 3 of our stay there – all of those days had been spent training (not that it was worth trying to control Credere, of course). However, I have established myself well to you as a night owl, and Lane as a morning person. You know how it went from there – zombie Hannah making her excuses for five, then ten, then an hour more of sleep, and how none of them worked. Before long I was being metaphorically dragged outside, my hood occupied by a blissfully napping Eevee.

"You made a promise, and now we are going to the marsh," Lane muttered indignantly, walking behind me in order to ensure that I didn't stop. All the while, I was complaining about not even being allowed my five-second breakfast break.

The morning was actually pretty nice, considering most of the Sinnoh mornings demanded that I wear my hoodie or be a popsicle. It was pleasantly quiet out, slightly humid, and just a sleepy, peaceful time.

I found my way to the gate to the marsh, gradually coming out of my drowsy stupor along the way. Lane hadn't even bothered trying to make conversation, which was kind of an odd thing for him. "Here we are. What kind of Pokemon is it that you were so interested in seeing or catching here?"

"Don't want to catch anything specific. I sort of want a Croagunk, though. Or a Skorupi." He shrugged, pushing open the glass door into the lobby and gesturing for me to pass. I quietly slipped in, nodding my head in thanks, and looked around. It was a small building, with a set of stairs crammed into the corner next to a small service desk, with a lady tapping away at a computer behind. The large glass double doors leading into the marsh were hardly fifteen feet from the entrance.

Lane came in beside me, and the door closed with a soft thud. The lady looked up in surprise, then smiled. "Welcome to Pastoria Marsh! Catch all you like on a self-led safari! How may I help you?"

"How much does it cost to go in?" Lane asked, smiling back. I just stood there awkwardly, letting him deal with the social stuff.

The two launched off into conversation, and before long Lane had gotten all the information we needed – the entry fee, the time limit, even which areas we could find some specific Pokemon in. He paid our way (and completely ignored me when I protested that I could pay for myself) and we were in.

It was surprisingly warm in the marsh – just on the other side of the entry gate, it had been much colder, if a little humid. I considered taking off my hoodie, but Mavis cuddled up next to my neck in her sleep and I decided otherwise, instead just rolling the sleeves up to my elbows.

"So, how long did you say we had?"

"Two hours. We each get 30 of those Safari Balls." Lane held out a small sack to me, another clasped tightly in his other hand. "We should take the QuickTram back to the first sector. The lady said most of the rarer Pokemon are back there today." He smiled, gestured for me to follow him. I did, and before long I could see the tram. The trees had been hiding it from view before, but now it was glaringly obvious.

It was more like a rolling platform with rails than a train, open to the sky and nature around. The sides of it were painted a bright, almost neon, green. Small concrete stairways led up to raised platforms that made it possible to get on.

Lane was inside of it before I had even reached the steps, waving animatedly for me to hurry up. Before long I was in, too, and Lane was pulling a lever in the middle that apparently made it go. The platform hissed slightly, then rolled out of the 'station' as smooth as could be.

The marsh was pretty huge – a few minutes of silence passed between the two of us, and we hadn't seen any sign of the next 'station'. I was just starting to phase out entirely when Lane's voice snapped me back to attention.

"Question game – where'd you get that Riolu?"

I jumped, looked down at my hoodie's pocket, and pushed the stuffed animal back inside. "None of your beeswax," I answered curtly, crossing my arms.

"Jeez. No need to bite my head off," Lane replied mildly, looking slightly affronted. "I was just curious. Riolu's a neat Pokemon."

And that's when my grumpy front dropped. I grinned. "I know, right? I've always wanted a Riolu, but I could never have one. At least, not until recently. Eh. I've just got too many emotional ties to that Pokemon."

"Really? Why?" Lane tilted his head slightly, sounding genuinely curious.

I hesitated. "Well, ah...back when I was about nine or ten, me and two of my friends would play a sort of...pretend game. That we were Pokemon, and we each had partners, and we would go off on make-believe missions and meet legendaries and hate on Darkrai and just have fun. My friends played as a Charmander named Firey and a Cyndaquil named Cherry...their 'partners' were Pikachu, named Lightning and Bolt. I played as an Eevee named Ava, and my pretend partner was a Riolu that I named Riley. So original, right?" I laughed with embarrassment. Why I was spilling my guts, I didn't know. But that's the straight, basic reason why I love Riolu – my partner in Mystery Dungeon was one. Someone hearing about my silly childhood games couldn't really hurt me. Maybe he'd laugh a little, but it wouldn't sting too much.

Lane didn't answer for a while after this, instead looking out at the passing greenery. The he looked back, grinning in a sort of sad way. "I played those games too. My sisters are the ones who started it. They told me I could play with them, and be a Pokemon, but mostly they lorded it over me the whole time. Told me what I could and couldn't do, and putting a toe out of line got me yelled at. But it was still a lot of fun." He paused, looking thoughtful for a minute. Then he laughed. "I remember we had an argument over what Pokemon I could be. I was going to pretend to be a Garchomp, so I could pretend to be big and powerful and be able to fly. They told me no, Garchomp was too strong. So eventually they decided I'd be a Gible. And then they named me Bobathan, since they couldn't decide if I should be Bob or Jonathan."

I was snickering at this, despite my attempts not to. Lane laughed along. "I know, right? But the name actually stuck. Whenever they were pretending to be mad at me, even when we stopped playing the make-believe games, they would always go, 'Bobathan Leonard Dorin!', like that was my real full name."

Now I was buckling over with laughter, and Mavis was squirming unhappily on my back as she unconsciously tried to get back into a comfortable position in my hood. "B-Bobathan...the Gible. That's a new one," I said, speaking through the spasms of giggles.

All of a sudden the cart lurched to a halt, and the lever snapped back upright with a loud CHAK. We were both thrown to the side by the sudden halt, and after exchanging the initial looks of shock from the floor of the tram, broke back out into uproarious laughter. Mavis finally woke up, wriggled out of my hood, and jumped to the platform, shaking herself and huffing indignantly. I scooper her up into my arms, stood up, and shook my head. "Well, here we are. Let's go catch some Pokemon!"

I caught practically everything I saw there in an effort to fill the pages of my Pokedex, but Croagunk was the one Pokemon I never saw. After splitting up and meeting up several times, Lane and I made it a bit of a race to see who could find and-or catch a Croagunk first.

The mud was possibly the most annoying thing there, and I was skirting around it the whole time, all the while grumping and moaning about it. Now, don't get me wrong – I could not care less about getting dirty and messy. It's when my clothes get dirty and messy and grimy and I have to wear them while the slime dries and I can't wash off that gets me. I can't stand being disgusting for too long, just because it itches and provides the most distracting annoyance ever known to mankind.

And the moment I looked away from the mud and into the trees was when I saw it. A Croagunk, digging through a moist but not quite muddy patch of earth, seemingly intent on finding something. I glanced up and around, and some ways ahead of and to the left of me stood Lane, staring back at me with surprise. He'd seen it too. Then he grinned and made a gesture that suggested cutting his throat, pointed at me, then to the Croagunk. I got the message, grinned back, and gave him a thumbs down as I crept forward.

He mimicked me, coming up from behind it and pulling a Safari Ball from his sack. He held it at the ready, lifted his arm to throw it...

And the Croagunk jumped into the air, seemingly startled by something. When it hit the ground again it was shaking like a leaf in the wind, appearing terrified. Then it looked straight at me and Lane, then to the very back of the marsh, and ran away from it, whizzing right next to me in its rush. I had time to hold up my Pokedex with my free arm and scan it, and some basic information appeared – its picture, Pokedex number, and possible Abilities. I peered at the Abilities, and the first one listed?

Anticipation. Dang it.

Lane marched up beside me, looking annoyed but teasing. "I would have had that! What did you do?"

I held up my Pokedex, tapping the part of the screen with its Abilities. "It must have known danger was coming. Its Ability must have been Anticipa-"

I never got to finish my sentence; the ground of the marsh started vibrating, softly at first, but its intensity grew at an alarming pace, until both of us were thrown to the ground. Mavis wailed in terror, and I did my best to wrap myself around her to keep her safe. Another thing grew with the vibration – a loud, harsh, sound that I quickly recognized as the sound of a massive explosion. Now, those action movies have it partially right, but this sound was much louder and intimidating, and at the time, had I been thinking straight, I would have considered it the sound an atomic bomb would make if I was in the vincinty of one setting off.

Panic settled in my gut, and in a rush of fear, I attempted to get back up and run. I managed a few steps, hearing the cracking, shattering sound of tree trunks snapping a little ways away.

"Hannah!" It was Lane's voice, sounding angrier and more afraid than I've ever heard it. I barely had time to turn my head slightly to look for him when something heavy barrelled straight into my side. I hit the ground again, something landing on top of me hard enough to knock the wind out of me and make my ribs threaten to crack, and a deafening thud and a sudden rush of wind behind me told me that I'd nearly been hit by a tree.

The weight suddenly lifted, and I flipped over to see Lane scooting away from me on his backside, reaching his arms out to Mavis, who'd been thrown from my own and was now cowering and yipping piteously. He picked her up, attempted to stand, and hit the ground again.

"Thanks," I whimpered, looking back at the tree. If Lane had been enough to hurt me, that thing would have turned my torso into a pancake. When I looked back at Lane, he was nodding to me, his face still a mask of terror. "No problem."

We both somehow managed to find our feet again when the vibrations and roaring explosions temporarily subsided, and the first word out of my mouth came at a yell. "RUN!"

I took off, still finding it difficult to stay steady on the shuddering, wet earth, only pausing when I heard Lane again.

"Hannah!" This time his voice was a hysterical shriek. I held up, my feet spread for balance as I tried to hold my own against the dirt. He pulled up beside me at an uneven lope, obviously not even trying to conceal his fear anymore.

"You have to run!" I snapped, my panic making me cruel. "We're gonna be hurt if we stay here!"

"I can't!" was his reply.

"_You have to, Lane!_"


	29. Chapter 28: Lane's Secret

My lungs hurt, my legs hurt, everything, everything, _everything_ hurt. The ground was not being kind. The explosions had picked up shortly again after the two of us started running again, and I had already had to shove Lane out of the way of yet another falling tree – favor repaid. He seemed to be having some issues, but he was keeping up with me easily enough. I was beginning to realize just how far the tram had taken us.

I wanted to take that tram back, but I could see the trees crisscrossing the rails, and the tram itself was derailed. We just had to run.

Seven minutes in, I could hear Lane gasping, and he was no longer keeping up with me, but instead falling behind. Fast. My mind refused to linger on this for long, though, instead driving me to leave him behind and run on, as fast and as hard as my agonized body could take me. Cue the battle between my newly awakened instincts for survival – which had very possibly never been used in my life – and my conscience, which demanded that I go back. After what felt like tearing myself down the middle, I felt myself slow slightly. This was all the prompting the ground needed to forcefully hurl me down, completely oblivious to how much it was beating my belongings in the process.

I let myself lay there for a little bit, then I remembered exactly how deep of crap I was in, and got back moving. After a few shaky retries, I was up and running in a lopsided, slow manner back the way I'd come. I couldn't see Lane anywhere.

The ground slowly stopped trembling, and I picked up my speed, not even trying to ensure balance now that I wasn't risking a broken nose. "Lane!" I intended to shout this, but my current lack of air prevented it from raising much louder than a normal tone.

A few times I had to catch myself in the process of stumbling – now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, I was losing what little coordination and energy the burst had given me. The land suddenly gave a final heave, sweeping my feet out from under me and forcing me to the ground, choking me on the sudden emptiness in my lungs.

After catching my breath, coughing a bit, I dragged myself back upright and onto my feet. "Lane!" This time I was a little louder, but it was still hardly anything. Then on with the running, which eventually meandered down to a jog as I lost steam. And the longer I went without any sign of him, the more I panicked.

Finally, after several more occasions where I called for my traveling partner, I heard a small, strained response. My name. I almost thought I didn't hear it at all, but on a whim I followed the sound through the trees. "Lane?"

"Vee!" The muffled cry of my Pokemon met my words, and I picked up my pace to the unsteady lope I'd held before. Not long after, I located Lane and Mavis. Mavis had her teeth firmly buried in the cloth of Lane's pants, tugging and jerking in such a spastic way that I almost thought she was having a seizure. Lane himself had propped himself up against a tree, his breathing almost painfully laborious and fast. Shallow, uneven, and messed-up enough to concern me, but the look of agony on his face was what genuinely scared me. His eyes were tightly closed, his eyebrows knit together in a way that suggested intense concentration. He was digging his rigid fingers into the ground.

"Are...are you okay?" I questioned, running through my mind any possible way I could help with what unknown problem was bothering him. Nothing came. He jerked his head slightly in a shake, telling me he was not, in fact, okay; something I'd already known, but now confirmed.

"What's wrong?" Mavis finally seemed to recognize my presence, and abandoned trying to drag Lane in order to prance frantically about my feet, mewling hysterically the whole time in an effort to tell me something I couldn't understand. It was very distracting.

Lane didn't speak, still breathing in that horribly strained way, instead lifting one mud-covered hand from the ground and rapping his chest with the butt of his palm. I didn't understand this any more than Mavis' shrieking and yipping. The hysteria was starting to rub off onto me as I grasped at straws, trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle I couldn't do.

"Lane, you need to tell me what's going on here!" I hissed, and he winced. He mumbled something so quietly I couldn't catch a word of it, and even then, I could tell it was only bits and pieces of what he wanted to say.

Somehow, though, something fell into place – a piece of the puzzle that had not existed at all before. The idea just fell into my mind, as if it had been shoved there. His heart. This new phrase triggered several more, and before I could really comprehend how it happened, I had a plan of action. I hit my knees next to his backpack, and I went digging through it in mad search of his Pokemon. Mavis forced her way in next to me, closing her teeth around the zipper to a different pocket, and I took her guidance and opened it instead. Lo and behold, there were the four pokeballs that contained his team.

I sorted through them, peering through the translucent tops until I found his Alakazam. She was out in a moment, and seemed to have already plucked my thoughts from my head, because as soon as I rezipped his backpack, she lifted her Trainer from the ground. However, contrary to what I'd planned, Corona positioned him between the two of us, so that we were both holding him up by his arms. He stirred slightly, opening his eyes just enough to give me and his Alakazam a confused look. She glared pointedly at me, then suddenly I understood. She wanted to teleport.

I held out my free arm, and Mavis sprang onto me, pawing worriedly at Lane. Corona nodded slightly, and a few moments later, I was spiraling into nothing.

It was a little like being sick, a little like that weightless, left-your-stomach-up-top feeling you get on a roller coaster, a little like being crammed into a space far too small for me. No air, no freedom to move, only a tense feeling of suspension before it all relieved.

I gasped, then glanced around. Sure enough. Hearthome City. Corona glared at me again, and took over guiding me to her destination. I merely followed her, supporting Lane, who now seemed to be slipping in and out of a stable breathing pattern, more often unstable than stable. The people in the streets seemed to be stunned and panicked by the spectacle of us; a girl and a Pokemon carrying a half-conscious boy through the doors of the hospital.

Lane was snatched away from us practically the moment we got inside, and us two left behind were shuffled off to a separate room, even though I could see Lane pathetically reaching for his Pokemon as the doctors wheeled him off.

I was immediately interrogated, and I gave the answers as quickly as I could, intent on getting it over with so I could ask my own questions. When it was over, I stopped the nurse from leaving the room.

"What's wrong with him?" My voice came out at a swift bark, and the nurse seemed surprised by my sudden change of tone.

"Well, it's not my place to tell you but I'd have assumed-"

"_What's wrong with him?!_"

Now the nurse looked a little worried. "I'd have assumed you'd have heard already. From him or from anybody around Hearthome. He has a heart condition. Lane is one of our frequent visitors here. Now I've really got to go and talk to-"

"I want to go see him now."

"I wouldn't advise that. His family is rather ill-disposed toward you right now, so-"

"Then sit your butt back down and give me some freaking details!" My voice had risen almost to the yelling point, and had I been in a room with anybody else, they would probably be staring. The nurse hesitated, clearly debating with herself on the subject, then she slowly took her seat again.

"What is it you need to know?"

"What's the condition? Why is it so drastic? What's happening to him now? What are y-"

"Slow down!" The nurse cut me off there. "Give me some time to answer. First off – what he has is called Ischaemic heart disease. His heart doesn't work properly, and it doesn't get blood where it needs to go as quickly as it should. It's an unusual thing for a teenager to have it – it's more common in older people – and that's part of makes it such a problem. He has never been a sit-still child, and it's grown gradually worse over time for him. His family's been waiting for years to get him a new heart. There's other ways to help it, of course, but they want him to be able to live a normal life. As for what's happening to him now, he's being helped into a more stable condition, then he's going straight into surgery."

"What?!"

The nurse shifted uncomfortably. "Well, like I said, his family has been waiting a long time for the chance to give him a new heart. A short time after he disappeared from Hearthome, one came in. They can only be preserved for so long, and he's about to miss what might be his only chance. We can't wait for the surgery."

All the anger and fear and emotion drained out of me, leaving me numb. It was slowly registering to me – Lane had a potentially deadly condition. He'd gotten me to take him with me out of Hearthome, apparently against the will of his parents. Because of this, he could still very well miss his chance to have a regular heart and life, and what had I done at the marsh? I'd demanded that he run. I'd forced him to run when it could have killed him. It was my fault that he ended up like this at all.

"Is that all you need to know?" The nurse asked, sounding sympathetic. She seemed to know what was running through my head, likely from my now-blank expression.

"...Yes." I took a few steps back, sinking back into my chair. Corona eyed me, seeming less hateful now. The nurse gestured to the Pokemon, gave me a wry smile, and headed for the door.

"Just wait here. We'll come and let you know what to do when we're ready." With that, both of them exited, leaving me in the room alone.

Slowly, I pulled Mavis' pokeball from my hoodie pocket (I'd been told to reball her upon entering) and turned it over and over in my hands. She looked up sadly at me from underneath the red cover, unintentionally reflecting some of the guilt that had taken hold of me at last.

My fault. It was my fault. And I'd run off and left him.


	30. Chapter 29: Some Talking

I was eventually shooed from the halls of the hospital by some very harried-looking nurses, who'd clearly grown impatient with my aimless wandering after about the third hour. This kind of ticked me off – I still wanted to see how Lane was doing, but they outwardly refused to let me until they were done operating.

So, as a result, I found myself ambling at a very relaxed pace through Hearthome's darkening roads. A few other people were still out, but all of them seemed to have a purpose in their step, moving much faster and toward a destination I didn't know.

Mavis was perched over my shoulder, sitting in my hood (she'd been there for about two hours, but had given up trying to antagonize me after the first forty-five minutes), huffing to herself. I'm pretty sure she was just annoyed with how boring I was being.

By the time the street lights flicked on, the sky had taken on a dark maroonish hue, and the only people still around were a few traveling Trainers making a mad dash for the Pokecenter, then another mad dash back out to the routes.

"Mavis, do you think they're done yet?" I asked quietly, more as a rhetorical question to myself than to my unsuspecting Eevee. I got a soft grunt in response, and I glanced over only to realize she was asleep, her claws buried in the violet fabric of my hoodie.

I stared for a moment, turned around, and started back to the hospital – they had to be done by now. Six hours was plenty, right? Even my mom's cancer surgeries hadn't taken that long. At least, I don't think so.

I took the revolving doors just for the sake of going around in circles about fifty times more than was necessary, then finally stepped inside. The lobby was quiet, with only a few people sitting inside. Two of the people on the couches there struck me as familiar; both were sitting pressed together, looking wearily anticipative. A moment's consideration made me realize I'd seen that look only too much, but that still wasn't what made them familiar to me.

I had to think about it some more, and by that time the two had realized I was staring and were staring right back, albeit in a much more disconcerted way. And then it hit me.

"Um..." I started very quietly, worried that I'd be judged badly if I was wrong. "Are you Lane's parents?" These words tumbled out quickly and blurrily, but the two people caught on. The woman nodded slightly, her shoulder-length brown hair slipping out from behind her ears in the process.

"And who might you be?"

I froze. The response came to my mind instantly, but seemed to get stuck in my throat for a moment or two before it emerged. "I'm Hannah. I was traveling with Lane for a while."

In hindsight, I probably should have kept that last sentence silent. The two pairs of eyes turned cold. And then came the flood of excuses, which most likely only made them dislike me more.

"I swear, I didn't know anything about his condition when he asked me if he could come along, I just thought he was asthmatic or something, and that earthquake was just a little unexpected by both of us, and-"

"Earthquake?" The man interrupted. He had the same gray-colored hair as lane, but instead of blue eyes, he had brown. He seemed interested now. "It was just a few little tremors here. What happened?"

I was relieved to find something to take the attention away from my unintended mistakes. "It was anything but tremors where we were. We had gone to Pastoria marsh to try and catch some new Pokemon, and then there was this loud noise, and the ground started trying to kill us. Trees were falling on us and the Pokemon were freaking out too and the tram got derailed. We almost couldn't stand up. And then we started trying to get back to the entrance, and we were running, and..."

I hesitated, and then proceeded with a white lie. They didn't have to know I intentionally left him behind for the first few minutes. "I lost track of him on the way, and had to go look for him when the tremors stopped, and when I found him he was next to a tree having a hard time breathing. So I got his Alakazam to help me get him out of there and she teleported us here and that's all that happened."

When they said nothing for a span of time, I started to panic a little. "I'm sorry, I really didn't know what was going on, and I was scared, and-"

The man chose that moment to interrupt me again. "It's all right. Anyone would have stopped thinking clearly in that situation."

A sense of relief even stronger than the last one hit me, and while it occurred to me that the man was giving me a roundabout insult by saying I lost my head (which was technically true), I was too busy being happy that he didn't hate me entirely to care.

"So Lane really didn't tell you about his heart condition before you two left?" The mother spoke up now, her voice ringing with doubt.

"No, he didn't." I said, shaking my head. "If I'd known about it, and if I'd known you two didn't want him leaving I never would have let him come."

The two exchanged looks. Then the mother looked back to me, putting on a strained (and very likely false) smile. "Well, thank you for at least accompanying him for a while. It's better that he went with someone than get caught in that kind of trouble alone."

I half-smiled back, then glanced to the hallways. "When is he getting out of surgery?"

"There's still another hour or two until they're done, and then he's going to have to stay put for a week or so while he's in recovery," she responded, her eyes flicking over to the halls as well. "We're staying overnight."

"You can do that?" I said, looking over in surprise. I had actually done such a thing before, but I didn't know if Sinnoh hospitals allowed that.

"Of course." she said. A long silence followed; I considered sitting down, but the circumstances seemed a little awkward for that. Then the voice of the mother caught me off guard again.

"...Was he good at being a Trainer?"

I had to make a few attempts at wrapping my head around her words before I caught on and got an answer together. "Actually, yeah. He's really good. I think there's only been one or two times where he's been beaten, and in his defense, those Trainers were way out of his league."

I caught a glimpse of the man smiling for a second, but it was gone almost as soon as I registered its presence at all.

"Did he catch any new Pokemon? Beat any Gym Leaders?"

"He didn't _catch_ any, as far as I know, since I've only ever seen the team he always uses with him. But when we were at Veilstone he completely trolled the Game Corner and got himself a Munchlax and an Eevee." I pointed to Mavis, who was now beginning to drool a little in her sleep. "But she decided she'd rather cling to me, so Lane gave her to me to use on my team. I still kinda treat her like a pet, though. And as for Gym Leaders, he hasn't beaten any – he said he wasn't ready to do that yet – but with all the training he gave his team, he would have won in a heartbeat."

Now the mother was smiling too. "Thank you for letting him experience that."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I just stood there uncomfortably for a moment. Then I got sick of standing and plopped myself into an armchair, disregarding how awkward aforementioned circumstances were.

I guess I really should have paid more attention to the time, or at least kept my mind from wandering – a few minutes of pointless thought, and the next thing I knew I was blinking awake to sunlight; someone was opening the blinds to the windows, and the lobby was empty aside from myself. I glanced to my surprisingly weightless shoulder through half-opened eyes, and sure enough, Mavis was gone. I didn't give that much though; she was probably just off exploring the halls, and what with all the nurses and other attendants about, there wasn't much damage a lone and inexperienced Eevee could do.

I shifted to get up, lifting my arms to stretch. A new thing rose with it – a blanket, moss green and thick. Someone must have put it on me in the night. I mentally thanked my nameless savior, and stood up to fold it. After that, I set it carefully back on the chair and tentatively slid over to the main hallway.

I could see people moving around inside, passing from hall to hall in the white and sterilized maze. All of them seemed very busy, on their own individual missions. I was a little miffed by this – I used to have my own little mission, but life seemed intent on throwing a wrench in my plans. I plan to get through school at home, get thrown into the world of Pokemon. Plan to go through the region in a typical manner and beat some Gyms, have to deal with Team Galactic to do so. Plan to catch some new Pokemon at a safari park, traveling partner gets mauled around by his own heart. It was exasperating.

I continued to mull this over until someone tapped my shoulder. My instant reaction was a strangled, muted shriek and spinning around. There before me was the nurse who had been drawing the blinds.

"Are you Hannah?" she asked me politely, not even fazed by my behavior. I nodded through my fast breathing and erratically beating heart. She smiled. "Your friend is fine. He's awake now."

"Can I go talk to him?" The words were out of my mouth almost before she finished speaking.

"Well, he shouldn't be talking much, and his parents are already in his room with him...but I think it'll be all right." She gestured for me to follow her, smiling again. "Come with me."

I was almost stepping on her heels as we went, only too eager to go ensure that my friend was truly well again. A few minutes of walking later, she stopped in front of a closed door. "This is his room. Go on in."

She stood there, waiting for me to make a move. I hesitated, feeling a bit nervous and guilty now that the time had come for me to actually face him again, then I grasped the handle, turned, and pushed the door open.

Three heads turned to face me (or rather the half of my head that was peeking through the crack I'd opened). Lane's parents were sitting on either side of a bed, in armchairs similar to the one I'd crashed in downstairs. Lane himself was in said bed, whose back was tilted upright so he was sitting. Aside from the IV in his arm, he looked completely normal to me. Then something I didn't expect happened. He grinned.

"Well, stop playing bashful, Hannah. I'm not gonna bite your head off."

I couldn't help my eyes widening a bit at this statement, and I stepped in a little more, so I was half in and half out of the room. I looked to the ground now, my eyes burning for some inexplicible reason – I wasn't sad. In fact, I was very relieved, very happy.

"Hey, whoa. It's not your fault, Hannah, there's no need to get upset. I'm fine, see? I'm okay."

I didn't dare look up for fear of letting any tears fall and risk being noticed. I hadn't come for unneccesary pity, nor did I intend to fish for any.

"I'm not upset. I'm just glad."

"Pff...I will never understand how your head works. Crying when you're happy..."

"Don't judge me." I retorted poutily, the burn in my face fading as I looked up, wearing an expression of faux annoyance. Lane grinned even wider.

"There. That's the grump we all know and love. I was beginning to wonder why you weren't being a zombie this early in the morning."

"Huh? It's early?" I responded, eyes wide again.

"Well, it's eight in the morning...but that qualifies as early by your standards." He snickered again.

"...True enough," I answered, shrugging. I decided to cut off the small talk there, since Lane's voice sounded kind of raspy as was. "Are you okay?"

"How many times to I have to answer that?" he exclaimed melodramatically, flipping his hands upwards in what I was sure would have been a full-on arms-fling if he hadn't been connected to the IV and a few other things. "First my parents, then my sisters, then the people from the hospital, then the people from the Contest Hall, now you! I'm one hundred percent okay. In fact, I'm great! A few months of recovery and I'll be able to do whatever I want to without risking dying on the pavement! How could I not be okay?"

Lane probably didn't know it, but that long-winded confirmation was what I needed to believe him. I found myself laughing noiselessly to myself by the end of it. "Message received. That's great!"

A tense silence followed. An inevitable question had made its way into my head, and I could tell from the look on Lane's face that he had the same question. His parents glanced between us and seemed to pluck the question from out of the air, his dad's face morphing into disapproval and his mother's into uncertainty.

"Lane, you're not going back to training Pokemon after this," the father stated bluntly. Lane snapped his head to face his dad so fast I was surprised it didn't pop off, his expression a mix of rage and disbelief.

"But I have to!" He retorted angrily. "I can't just sit around Hearthome forever once I heal, not now that I'll be able to travel safely!"

"You deliberately disobeyed what your mother and I told you, and you nearly got yourself killed because of it. I think we're being very lenient with you, when you think about the consequences of what your disobedience could have been."

"You can't just-"

"No, _you_ can't just do that." His dad had taken on a state of utter finality, one my parents used all the time with me when I was being punished. Lane looked desperately toward his mother, and I'll admit I did too – my mom was always the one to actually think about granting my wishes before she spurned them, maybe Lane's mother was the same way. The woman just closed her eyes and knit her eyebrows, shaking her head in wordless dissent.

"Mom! Please!"

Another shake. "I know you had fun, but even with a new heart, traveling and training is never safe."

I wanted to intervene. Oh, god, how I wanted to intervene and say something. But if there's anything I've learned, messing around in the matters of other families only makes things worse. So I bit my lip, closed my eyes, and looked down so I wouldn't have to feel so bad when Lane turned his despairing eyes on me.


	31. Chapter 30: Lane Plays Mindgames

The room stayed strung and stormy for the next few minutes, dozens of wars passing between the parents and son within seconds and glances. Finally, Lane broke the silence. "Can I talk to Hannah alone for a minute? There's something I need to talk to her about."

His parents gave me _extremely_ suspicious stares, but left the room and shut the door with a soft click. Then Lane turned his angry eyes on me.

"You know something, don't you." It was more of a statement than a question, snapped out rather than spoken.

"W-what? What do you mean?" I was startled by this, and tried to put two and two together.

"About the explosion, you doof."

Now it made sense. "Lane, how would I know anything abo-" I stopped mid-sentence. He had said explosion. Not earthquake. Sure, there was that loud noise before the quake started, but everyone just assumed that was the sound of the quake starting.

"Yeah, that's right. You've been thinking a little too loudly. You know what it is, you know what caused it, and you chose to stick around here when you knew I'd be fine?"

"I was just worri-"

"Worried, my ass!" I cringed at the word. "Everyone is worried about me and I'm getting sick of it! 'Lane, how are you feeling today?' 'Lane, be careful, you don't want to overexert yourself.' 'Are you sure you'll be able to do that, Lane?' 'Lane, I'm worried about you! I'm just worried!' Well, message received, world! I'm being worried over for being a cripple! I get it!" His voice had swiftly turned into a snarl, and it was scaring me to see the usually docile grayhead so harsh.

"Look, I know you may not know the story, but there's a reason why I didn't want you to know. I'm sick of people treating me like a five-year-old just because I had a defective heart. I wanted to leave and be known as more than the cripple, so I tried and succeeded in leaving with someone who didn't already know the pitiful tale of Lane Dorin, the kid with the heart problem. You are the last person I want to worry over me, understood? You are the only one who treated me like I could hold my own. You are the only one who acted as if I was a person with my own two feet, and you didn't try to take my hand and show me how to do what I already knew how to do. You made me challenge myself instead of sitting me down and telling me to take it easy. So don't you dare start worrying about me now! I don't want anyone else's pity! Save it for someone who needs it!"

I opened my mouth, closed it, and opened it again, trying to say words that weren't in my throat. My moment's silence gave Lane the second he needed to catch his breath and keep going.

"Now that we've got that well established, I'll ask again. What do you know about that explosion, and why aren't you attending to that instead of me?"

"I know everything about that explosion, but it's not my role to manage it, and I couldn't just leave you here, you're my friend. Please don't get so worked up over this, you're still healing and it can't be good for y-"

"I'm sorry, I thought we had this duely noted?" Lane interrupted, his voice now scarily calm. "I don't want or need your worry, so stop. We need to figure out what happened at that lake, and you already know about it. Since I can't go and investigate for myself, I need you to get your butt out there and sort things out. If you think everything's going to fall into place nice and neat and that everything is going to turn out perfectly, you're dead wrong."

Now my own patience was beginning to wear a little thin at the edges, and it showed very quickly. "Lane, you don't know what I know – things could end very badly for all of us if I even dare set foot near Lake Valor-"

Lane interrupted me yet again. "See! Right there! You already knew it had something to do with Lake Valor! You know more than all of us, but you're going to make everyone go to the trouble of figuring it out for themselves and possibly allow more trouble to brew while they struggle? Selfish, that's what you are! You're too scared to go see for yourself!"

I recoiled at this. Now, I can understand his point of view, and I can be remarkably patient with someone who is probably in pain and recovering, but when someone I trust with my back lashes out at me so unkindly, I tend to retaliate. I opened my mouth to call him out for his behavior, when a small something shot out from underneath Lane's bed, hurling itself at my legs and biting into my jeans. I didn't even have to think to know it was Mavis, and I promptly scooped up the little furball.

"...If you're finished chewing me out, I have a lake to go to," I told him. "I'll check things out, but don't expect me to stir up trouble."

I turned to go, fuming, when I was stopped by him. "Hey, one last thing." I glanced back, and did a double take when I saw him grinning.

It slowly began to dawn on me what had just occurred. "Oh no you didn't."

He grinned even wider. "Oh hell yes I did." I found myself grinning again too, the wounds to my emotions healing a little.

"You need to stop provoking me to make me do stuff, Lane, it's not gonna end well."

"But it works." he answered, his voice taking on a sing-song teasing tone. "As for the last thing I was gonna tell you..." He glanced to the door briefly, then back to me. "You don't really expect me to stay here forever, do you?" he whispered.

I stared, torn between scolding him or applauding him for reacting exactly as I would have to my parents' dissent. Then I nodded, though my own smile was subdued. "Got it. Just stay long enough to heal, okay? Don't want you to break your new heart before it's safely healed, I guess?" My own voice was only just audible, and I found myself glancing back to the door every so often.

"Pff, don't worry, remember? I'm not going to ruin my chance at a normal life. I'm at least smart enough to know to do that." He flicked his hands to the door. "Now seriously, get outta here. You have to go check out Lake Valor, and keep me updated on what's happening!"

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Ever heard of email? I have my own computer at home, you know."

"Oh, oh, okay. Got it."

Lane raised his voice again. "You got a piece of paper? I can write down my email, and you can message me later."

I quickly retrieved said paper from my backpack and handed it to him, and he scribbled down something on it with a pen he'd grabbed from the table next to him. He tossed the paper back at me when I was done, and I caught it before it fluttered to the floor.

"Don't get yourself killed while you're out there, I can't look after you anymore." Lane teased, gesturing to the door.

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Who's looking after who, now?" He laughed. I smiled again, shifted my backpack, lifted Mavis to my hood, and grabbed the handle of the door. "I'll keep in touch."

"Good."

Then I was out, and I waved to his parents, who were talking to a nurse a little ways down the hall. "Bye!" They smiled tentatively and waved back, and I headed through the halls back to the entrance.

Once I got out the door, Mavis started nipping at my shoulder, apparently in need of something to harass. I ignored it as well as I could, then pondered how I was going to get back down to Pastoria City in a hurry. It had taken Lane and I ages to get there, and though there was a convenient path between there and Hearthome, it was still at least three days' travel on foot.

After a bit of thinking, it hit me. One half of me was moaning, _Oh no. _The other half was cackling evilly and thinking _Oh heck yesssssss!_

I shifted my backpack to my front, and untied the skates from its side. Once I had my backpack shifted back and the skates in my hands, I just looked at them for a moment or two. "Mavis, how well do you think these things will work in the Underground...?" Her followup yip was in no way reassuring, and I sighed, heading to where I knew the pipes leading down were.


	32. Chapter 31: I Cover Some Ground

Turns out, the rough floors of the Underground had nothing on my skates, and even though the ground was mostly level, it sloped at about the same level as the surface did. This gave me a bit of an advantage and allowed me to go farther, with less effort. And the path ahead of me was mostly straight. By checking my little searching device's map of the Underground maze, I figured out that the pipes leading up to Pastoria were pretty easy to get to – I only had to take two turns total in my path to come across them, but even skating, it was going to take me a long time to get where I was going.

Mavis had continued jabbing at me the whole time I tied my skates on. On a second thought, I put on my hard hat and flicked on the light; I was always careful to do that down here now, I'd learned my lesson very well in the Oreburgh Mines. Once this was done, I stood up, having to stand on my toes to keep from slowly rolling with the slope.

My problematic Eevee darted ahead, expecting me to take off immediately, only to freeze and come back when she realized I wasn't following. Seeing how fast she took off planted a silly idea in my head. But it was an idea, and it stuck. I looked in my backpack again, and after a moment's hesitation, I snatched out Kira's pokeball and released him.

He looked at me, down to my skates, and seemed to understand exactly what was going on. And surprisingly, he didn't seem objective about it. Instead he stared at my backpack and waited for me to take action.

I did so, pulling out an Escape Rope from the bag. Kira picked it up from the middle, and I tried to take it from him and give him the end instead. He refused to let go, instead prodding the other end of the rope to me until I got the point. I picked up both ends, wrapping them around my hands a few times for good measure.

Kira waited for me to get my bearings together and reball Mavis, then he took off. The Luxray started slow, but it took him barely any time to accelerate to a speed where I was terrified of moving and even more terrified of stopping.

What I didn't expect was for Kira to let go.

I had been staring dead ahead of me, extremely grateful that my glasses kept most of the wind out of my eyes (I still don't understand how it felt so windy in a stagnant cavern) and I almost didn't notice as the rope went slack in my hands. Almost.

Kira tossed his end over my head, letting me fly past him for a moment. That was when the shock was still just setting in, and I only started yelling after he took off again and started racing beside me.

I was almost used to it, and I had stopped yelling for a little while, until I saw the path end ahead of me. Nothing but a flat wall. I shrieked, and that was when Kira dove behind me, the rope catching tight again as he did. I didn't stop instantly, but Kira did slow me down gradually, running, then loping, then just walking behind me. My skates finally stopped moving some twenty feet from the end of the tunnel.

Adrenaline still pumping, I somehow bullied my shaking legs into moving me to the end of the path, and making my first turn – the tunnel had a narrow pathway to its left. The ride seemed to have gone by amazingly quickly, but when I pulled the searching device out of my hoodie pocket and checked the time, I realized it had been about half an hour since the ride started. I stared back to Kira, who was padding behind me through the tunnel as if the run had been nothing. Suddenly I felt very inadequate.

Terrified as I was, I allowed this process to repeat for the next stretch of tunnel – this time the ride took about an hour. Only two thirds of the way through that one did it occur to me just how fast I was likely going and how much it would hurt if I wiped out, and all of a sudden the floor of the Underground did not seem welcoming at all.

By the time the last stretch came around, Kira was actually showing some signs of being tired, so I plopped my rear down at the start of the next stretch, leaning against the wall behind me (my legs needed some R&R anyways). Kira curled up next to me, taking advantage of my own rest to take a nap.

I was on the verge of doing the same thing myself, toying with my Riolu plush and the pokeballs of the rest of my team, when a voice caught me off guard.

"Skating in the Underground, huh? That's a new one." The voice was mildly surprised and a little condescending, and I knew its owner without even having to think.

"'m tryin' to nap, Roark. I've still gotta cover at least two hours worth of skatin' before I get to Pastoria..." I mumbled, my words slurred a little from sleepiness.

"Why are you trying to nap here? Kinda an odd spot, no?"

"My base is a really long way from here, 'kay? And you aren't exactly in home territory yourself..." I muttered back.

"Well, at least I have a reason. A few of us Gym Leaders have been called to investigate the explosion at Lake Valor...seems there's been activity with Team Galactic there."

This snapped me right awake. "Oh, crap, already?!" I knew they were going to be there probably just minutes after the tremors from their bombing stopped, but if it had been long enough for the Gym Leaders to be called in...well, it set off tons of red flags in my head. Nothing like this had happened in the game, and if the Leaders somehow got there before Dawn wrapped things up with Saturn, I would be left absolutely clueless as to how things were going to work out.

As if the bombing happening before Dawn was ready hadn't thrown one hell of a wrench in my plans already.

"Well, seems like you were smart enough to realize the Underground is a good way to get places..." Roark mused. "And looks to me like you were using your Luxray to pull you along?"

"Now that you're finished stating the obvious, there's some pretty serious business I have to get to as soon as humanly possible," I snapped, my voice not mean but rather panicked. "Kira, buddy, we gotta move!"

The Luxray blinked a few times, stretched himself out, and stood, waiting for me to pass him the rope. I tossed it to him, slinging my backpack on again and tossing the pokeballs and my Riolu inside. I wrapped the ropes around my hands, and they slid straight into the indents my hands already bore from the death grip I'd had on the rope for the rides. I winced slightly at the slight jolt of discomfort I got from this, but braced myself quickly. "Ready, Kira?"

"Hey, wait! You shouldn't go to Pastoria, it's not safe!" Roark yelped, caught off guard by my swift reaction. I stared pointedly at him.

"That's the whole point, stupid! I need to make sure everything goes as it should!"

With that, Kira took off again. I now knew exactly how to brace myself and avoid the bumps in the path, though my legs were still kind of shaky. Before long Kira had tossed the rope back and we were gone. He had to pull at it a few times along the way, where the slope was less helpful and the friction finally got to my skates, but for the most part this stretch went as smoothly as the others.

The first few times had been terrifying, but this one was more boring. After I got myself balanced right, the whole trip was one long, straight, montonous shot. It was like a car trip, really, except where if you didn't 'sit' like you were supposed to you'd break a limb or two, and the car was a pair of wheeled shoes.

And I had a lot of time to think. Mostly trivial thoughts, like why I only ever seemed to run into Roark while I was down here, and if there would ever be a day where Mavis didn't take an ungodly amount of joy in bothering me, but a few other more important thoughts snuck in. What if Dawn couldn't do anything about Saturn? What if she didn't show up at all? What about when the events on Mt. Coronet came around? Would Lane be healed before or after all this was over?

Was I going to go home when all this concluded?

Before I even knew it, Kira was slowing me at the end of the road. Well, technically not the end, the tunnel continued on much farther, but the pipes leading to the surface were protruding from the ceiling and I needed to stop there.

After packing up my skates, reballing Kira with promise of a reward, and getting my helmet put away, I got into the pipes and hauled myself up, more than ready to take a nap once I got to the top. But that was not an option, I had a lake to check. I could already tell today was going to be much too full for my liking.

By the time I poked my head out, I was tired of the silence and darkness. So it came as a sort of dull blow when I saw the condition of Pastoria.

I guess condition isn't quite the right word, though. The place was bright and it looked like any other beautiful day, with one large abnormality. It was completely deserted.

I crawled out of the tube, very slowly. "Uh...hello?" As I expected, no reply.

But as I wandered around, thoroughly unnerved, I began seeing signs of life. The flutter of a closed curtain, shadows behind windows. Everyone had hidden inside. Which made sense, I suppose. After such an earthquake no one would really feel safe, even though the city itself clearly sustained no obvious damage. But this still seemed like a ridiculous amount of paranoia over something that had happened at least a whole day ago.

"No way something else happened..." I said, thinking aloud. Maybe these kind of events were so uncommon in Sinnoh that it really did startle them badly enough into hiding. I wouldn't be surprised – every conflict (all of which were minor) was settled by Pokemon battling, which generally wasn't too destructive. Come to think of it, maybe that was why the adults were too incapable and afraid of defeating the evil teams that always seemed to crop up in the Pokemon games.

"God, why can't I live in such a pacifistic place?"

I wandered a little more, trying to see if even one person was still out and running around. Nope. I sighed irritatedly. _Well, nobody's around here. I better go check up on Team Galactic at the lake, see if Dawn or Lucas is already there._

I headed out to the other side of town, the side Lane and I had come in from when we first got here. And then a sudden explosion caught me off guard. The noise was loud enough to leave my ears ringing, and the ground shook a little, but it was nothing like the one before. I whipped around, almost falling over from disorientation. By this point the Pastoria Marsh was behind me, and it had seemed to come from there. As soon as the ringing in my ears dimmed a little, I could hear someone swearing like a sailor.

On impulse, I ducked down behind the nearest object – a map sign – and I watched. Not a minute later I saw a Galactic grunt high-tail it past my hiding spot, not even notcing me even though I wasn't particularly well hidden. All I could really make out was something about getting in trouble and demotions and bombs before he was gone. I stood up, the ringing gone, and took off after the grunt, a little pissed.

I got out onto Route 213, looking around for the grunt, but found nothing. Then it occurred to me – the Pastoria Marsh only got bombed in Platinum. Was I as right as I thought in guessing I was in an instance of Pearl? I shook the thought from my head for the moment, and kept on looking for the grunt. My search brought me out to the Valor Lakefront, which was my goal in the first place, and I abandoned the chase in favor of the lake.

Nobody blocked my way or even showed up as I crept through the narrow pathway. Soon it opened up, and I was met by a pretty awful sight.

Now, since Pokemon is a kid-friendly game, they don't generally show things like the half-charred bodies of the monsters murdered in the explosion. I was immediately met by the half-skeletal face of one as I arrived, and I jumped out of my skin at the sight of it.

Then I saw all the grunts milling around down below, in the craters of what was left of Lake Valor, and I hit the ground belly-first. I crawled over awkwardly to the ledge, unwilling to lift myself even a little off the dirt for fear of being seen.

Everything seemed kind of systematic down there – several grunts were shuffling the remaining live pokemon (mostly Magikarp) into the less occupied areas, mostly with disregard to whether there was enough water for the Pokemon to continue their being alive. Some grunts were just in groups chatting, some were trying to push away the debris, and a few were guarding a large mound in the deepest pit. _That's gotta be Azelf's cavern. It doesn't look like Dawn's been here yet, though..._

And as if it were on cue, I saw a flash of pink and black dart out from behind a rock and head for the cavern – she'd been so well hidden I couldn't see her even from my vantage point several stories above. Only two of the guard grunts made an effort to stop her, and after a worryingly drawn out battle she beat them.

I could tell already that her team was alarmingly underprepared for battling Saturn, and she'd pulled off quite the feat getting to the cavern at all. I could see only four pokeballs at her side, and I'd seen every one of their occupants in the grunt battle; Prinplup, Buneary, Togetic, and Roselia. While this wasn't the worst setup, they couldn't have been much higher than level 25, and Saturn had at least two Pokemon at level 40 if I remembered right.

I finally decided to do something, creeping over to the makeshift stairs the grunts had carved out of the broken earth already. I headed down as fast as I could. As unprepared I was myself, my team was in at least the low thirties and that had to be better shape than Dawn was in.

A few of the grunts made indignant cries as I went by, but none of them made a move to stop me, probably since Dawn had taken care of them already. I hoped they wouldn't realize that there were probably enough of them to take me and my team down without their own Pokemon.

I finally got down to the cavern, and glanced up to where I'd come. The uneven, steep slope loomed far above me, seeming way taller than it actually was.

I turned from it, entering the small entrance to the cave. Instead of immediately opening up into Azelf's chamber, a narrow, low-roofed tunnel led down. Into the dark. Which I was very unokay with. I went down nonetheless, because I kind of had to.

After about four yards, the tunnel opened into the chamber I'd been expecting. It was dimly lit by some lights the Galactics had evidently brought in. And there was no sign at all of Saturn or Azelf. I might've missed Dawn if it weren't for the pink on her dress and her red scarf, but there she was, frantically pacing around the perimeter of the cave. Her boots splashed in the water from time to time, and even though I expected the noise I still flinched a little every time it came. It was just so silent and still and dark in the room that I felt there shouldn't be noise here, much less living things.

"Hey-" I started, trying to get her attention. She turned to me, her expression murderous for a moment before she recognized me. "Oh. It's you." I couldn't tell from her voice if she was relieved or annoyed by my arrival.

"Yes. Me." I answered. I was antsy from just being here. It was wrong. And the story was going wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to turn out. "Saturn is gone. So is Azelf. We're a little late."

"No duh!" Dawn snapped. I flinched again.

"But we're early too...this is messed up. This wasn't supposed to happen until you were ready. What happened?" I said this half to her and half to myself.

"What's that supposed to mean?" The edge in her voice faded a little, only to come right back with her next words. "I really hope that wasn't some sort of jab about me being a slow Trainer."

"How'd you get 'slow' out of that?" I quipped. Then before I could get off tangent, I shook my head. "But I digress. What I mean is that the Galactics are moving their plan too quickly." I paused, trying to word myself carefully. "They shouldn't have bombed the lake for at least another month or two...probably about the time you'd be working on your sixth Badge. You know?"

"And how would you know that?"

"Cause I've been looking into their plans for a long time." _And also foiled them about five or six times up to date if you ask my game cartridges._

She seemed to buy this. "So...What should we do about it?"

There was the big question. What to do about this sudden unpredictability? This was moving much too fast for me to keep up with at my pace, and- "Move faster." I mumbled.

"Hmm?"

"We've established this happened way too soon. Or at least I have. So we'll just have to go faster. A whole lot faster. We can beat them to it." The words started spilling out. It was kind of an irrational idea, that we could go much faster than we were, but it was all I could cling to.

"I still don't have much of a clue what you're talking about."

"I promise to explain everything that I am able to explain later, okay?" I told her. "But for now we all need to speed up our work on getting the Badges and training – you, me, Barry, Lucas. We all need to get to the sixth Badge at the very least in the fastest time possible. Two weeks? I dunno. But we don't know when Galatic is gonna make its next move, either."

She stared at me like I was crazy, which I guess I kind of was. Just traversing the region to get between all the cities with the Gyms we needed would take two weeks, if we took the fastest possible route with no training and sidestops in between; and we'd need training more than anything, and sidestops were pretty much impossible to avoid. But everything just escalated from here on out in the storyline, so even two weeks might be too slow.

I overthought it so much and so fast I almost gave myself a headache, and I cursed quietly under my breath. "Hey Dawn?"

"What?"

"This sucks."

"Agreed. Now can we get out of here?"


	33. Author's Note

**AN:**

You guys are probably so used to my long disappearances, this won't be anything new. Chapters are going to be ridiculously slow in the making again. I had intended to pick up the pace a little and start getting chapters done every three or four days, but about an hour after I posted 31, my computer broke down, which took out the three or so pages of 32 I'd had almost done.

So thanks to technical difficulties, WDBR is going to be continuing its semi-hiatus for a little longer. Sorry about that! But for those of you who have stuck around despite the slow updates, thank you! I really appreciate all the support you give me.

See you soon!

-Fornara


	34. Author's Note - Two years

So much for 'See you soon', huh?

If anyone is still around, hello! Fornara here. WDBR has been on hiatus for almost two whole years, the same amount of time I have been without a computer. Recently, after a whole lot of working and saving, I've been able to buy myself a new computer and gear up to write again. But the thing is, since it's been so long, I've had a lot of time to practice writing. WDBR is two years behind what I feel I'm capable of writing now. I still like this story but I feel like I've almost outgrown it, which brings me to the point of this note. Should any of you choose to answer, what do you think? Should I try to finish WDBR? Try to rewrite it? Start a whole new pokemon fanfiction? One way or another I intend to restart posting here, so I'd like to hear your opinions!

Hope you've all been well, and I hope I can hear from you soon! I'm looking forward to rejoining the fanfiction community!


	35. Chapter 32: The Gameplan

**(OOC: Hey, everyone! I just wanted to say thanks for all the input and thanks for sticking around again! By popular demand, WDBR shall continue as it was planned, hopefully to the end this time! Chapter uploads are probably not going to be regular or even often because of other obligations, and I'm hoping to start another fanfiction [this time in the PMD universe] to write alongside it. Either way I'm excited to be back and writing again! As a warning for any of you with little patience for recapping, this chapter is going to have a LOT of recapping and not a lot of actual progression.)**

Things have been very busy since my last update here, if you haven't guessed. While the other Dexholders and I have been busting our butts training, I've paid attention to the news and there's no denying it now - something is truly, horribly wrong here. Not two days after Lake Valor's explosion, there was another at Lake Verity, where Lucas and Barry both tried and failed in saving Mesprit from Team Galactic. I've heard nothing about Uxie since then but there's no arguing that soon it will be taken as well - it's too much to hope that they'll leave it alone, even though it's been three weeks including today since Mesprit's abduction.

It's been collectively agreed that we shouldn't spend much time getting Badges and we should spend more time leveling our Pokemon, though we went ahead and got Badges anyways. As a result our Pokemon are overworked and a bit resentful but we're all reasonably leveled now. If I remember right, here's how our teams stand;

Dawn is the strongest of us all, with her team in the mid-forties levelwise - she took it to heart when I told her we would need to put our noses to the grindstone. Even with only four Pokemon (Empoleon, Lopunny, Togetic, and Roselia) she's made a name for herself among Team Galactic. I know this because she's always the first to any location where Team Galactic seems to gather, and nips their activity in the bud. In hindsight, it's probably all thanks to her that Uxie's been left alone so long, what with her constant disruptions.

Barry's right behind her, but mainly because he has five fully evolved Pokemon on his team - Torterra, Staraptor, Heracross, Floatzel, and Rapidash. As for levels they're still behind in the upper thirties.

Lucas and I are about equal for the time being. His team (Infernape, Kadabra, Clefable, and Gabite) has been trained meticulously, more for specific roles than overall brawn and bulk, though their levels are the lowest of all of ours. He's been up to his eyeballs in work trying to juggle his work on the Pokedex and investigating Team Galactic. Usually he's the one in the loop on their plans and letting Dawn know where to go - ever since the series of events started going awry, I haven't been any help for predicting their movements. My own team hasn't changed much from the last update aside from some level spiking (excluding Mavis, of course), but I like to think I have the most know-how of the four of us since I am both the oldest and technically a 32-time Champion at least.

All of us have one thing in common as for our progress - six Badges apiece. Barry aside, who earned all his Badges the hard way, we got certain Badges as thank-yous for help in the area or for the extra privileges more Badges offered (after all, if we didn't have the appropriate number of Badges there were only so many places we could go). Professor Rowan may or may not have been vouching for us to get those early privileges, and I know for solid fact Roark did some talking with his dad to get me the Mine Badge without my even setting foot in Canalave. The gym leaders themselves hadn't yet stepped in to interfere - this is mostly my doing.

Why would I actively spurn the gym leaders' assistance?, you may be wondering. Gym leaders would certainly be an asset to stopping Team Galactic, especially since their newfound overactivity (mostly comandeering power-generating locations; I've got a hunch they're trying to make the Red Chain without Uxie, since we're evidently so apt at cutting them off). But my reasoning for this is that the gym leaders never stepped in in the games, and I'm still clinging to the hope that if I force events to be as similar to canon as possible, the timeline will revert back to what it was supposed to be.

It's scary, you know?

The whole reason I felt even remotely secure after being dropped here with nothing but my backpack was because I knew _step-for-step_ how things were going to play out. Without that, I feel like the rug's been yanked from under my feet. Funny how that all worked out. And for it to all go sour so fast...

Well, enough of that. On a happier note, Lane and I have been keeping in touch. A lot. Enough in touch that I am confident he's the reason my team hasn't long outpaced Dawn's. He's still in recovery but at home now, and keeping up with the Dexholder escapades as best he can, be it through in-person conversations, emails, or the rare video call. Those are the best. Though there was a lot of deliberation over the matter, Lane was allowed to keep his Pokemon, and anytime he tries to video call he inevitably get crowded out by his team. (That's why the video calls are rare.) It turns out that Pokemon are used to help speed up the recovery process, so even though I'm conflicted about it, he's bound and determined to be back on the road and training soon - and he'll physically be able to get away with it.

That just about covers everything that needs to be said for what's been happening since my disappearance, so here's the new plan of action we've decided on.

Similarly to in the game, I suggested Barry head for Snowpoint City, to keep an eye on Lake Acuity and take custody of Uxie if necessary. He immediately agreed. Of course, since Snowpoint happens to be the city of the seventh Badge and, honestly, he's not terribly invested in Team Galactic's matters. He's just leveling to keep up and keep on with his goal to become Champion. Honestly, I can't blame him, because aside from myself and maybe Dawn, no one understands just how severe things have become, and half the region is still convinced the group is only seeking to find power alternatives. He doesn't know this yet, but I plan to come to Snowpoint too, despite my general cold intolerance and the swift setting-in of winter here.

I'm going to stall everyone, Galactic and Dexholders alike, until I know the Dexholders are ready. But in the end Uxie must still go to Team Galactic if the timeline is to go back to normal. If that means I have to fight the Dexholders to repair the events of whatever instance of Sinnoh this is...

Well, I really don't like to think about that possibility.

I doubt they'll get that strong _quite_ that quickly.

I need to fit in a bit more training if I can, because the expedition through Mount Coronet and up to Snowpoint City begins tomorrow.

Hannah, out.


	36. Chapter 33: A Departure and a Return

"Hey, good luck out there!" Dawn said, sounding optimistic. Lucas stood not far behind her, fiddling with his scarf nervously as Barry shoved the last of his things into his backpack. I petted Mavis absently as I watched them say their goodbyes and see-you-laters - my mind was elsewhere just then.

We stood at the entrance of Mount Coronet, on the Hearthome side. The sun was only just starting to peek over the horizon (meaning we'd had to wake up at a downright ungodly hour to see off our favorite bundle of hyperactivity) and I was nowhere near awake. My team wasn't even awake enough to walk to Mount Coronet with me, and as a result were all minus Mavis voluntarily riding in their pokeballs, probably getting some more sleep. The greater part of last night had been spent running around buying extra equipment for my trip through the mountains; while there was something like a path chiseled out through them, it was still going to be a long and taxing few days. Not to mention cold. Oh boy, I wasn't looking forward to that.

"...Hannah!" I was finally snapped out of my thoughts by Lucas, who had apparently called my name a few times.

"Sorry, yeah?"

"We should probably get going now. There's a lot to get done today." _If you're talking about sleep, sure right we've got a lot to do today._

"Sure. Got it. See you, Barry!" I called one last time, and he just waved from inside the cave without looking back. Before I could take even a few steps he was out of sight around a rocky corner. The three of us remaining exchanged some glances, then turned to head into Hearthome together. It was quiet for a while, with just the sound of our footfalls and some chirping Starly breaking the silence. I cleared my throat.

"So, guys, what's been up with you? It's been a while since we were all in the same place like this."

"Training aside?" Dawn asked. "I've managed to find some time to do a couple of Contests. They're really fun! You guys should see my Roselia onstage, she's just the best."

"Really?" Lucas and I answered together, my answer coming a bit behind his.

"Yeah! It's a whole new take on how Pokemon can use their moves, and with some creativity...well, one time, I was in this Beauty contest and..."

Her story continued well into the city, interrupted only by our questions and comments on it. Her enthusiasm about even the littler parts of the story reminded me, subtly, that she was only twelve. All the other Dexholders were. Sure, I was only two years older, but I was yet again impressed by their competence.

The story ended as we neared the Pokemon Center, where we stopped to get breakfast from the food bar before going our separate ways. As was usual at this hour, the lobby was mostly empty except for us, a couple other early risers, and the nurse at the counter. Dawn and Lucas left before I did - they stuck together nowadays. Traveling, level-grinding, Galactic raids, even in the Underground, I seemed to always see them running around together. It wasn't surprising, given the partners-in-crime relationship their Galactic busting afforded them.

I stretched, considering my options. Visiting Lane was something I definitely planned to do today, since I was in town, but seeing as I was running on three hours of sleep and had spelunking to do later, I was seriously considering just going back to my base, catching some z's, and ignoring the schedule. I checked my poketch. 7:46.

How was this even fair.

I stood up, shifting the base of my hood - having Mavis' weight in it all the time pulled it back and made it press on my neck. She made a complaining sound in her sleep. I ignored her. Slinging my backpack back on, I headed out and took my time exploring the city streets. People dressed for work were starting to come out en masse, but I still had plenty of time before the roads got too crowded.

Eventually I made my way to the apartment building that I knew was Lane's, and slipped inside. I felt like I knew the place well enough now - the elevators were down a short hall and to the left, in the small community area there was a coffee maker where people could get hot drinks on cold mornings, after 10am an elderly woman could almost always be seen outside with her Zigzagoon. All little things, of course, but interesting anyways. I walked to the elevators in question, pushing the button for the fourth floor. It rumbled as it rose. Once it reopened I went with a bit more urgency to the door labeled 412, and knocked. After a long wait and the sound of some shuffling, the door opened.

Mr. Dorin stood there looking scruffy and sort of tired. Immediately, I felt bad.

"Did I just wake you up? I'm sorry if I did."

"No, you're fine. Come on in." He held the door open long enough for me to step inside, then shuffled off to some other room. I got the feeling that by now, he and his wife didn't like me, exactly, but at least tolerated me now. I looked around, hunting for the gray-haired idiot I'd come to see - he was always up by this time. When he didn't appear, I headed down the hallway, opening his door a crack.

"Can I come in?"

"Oh! Sure!"

I opened the door the rest of the way as he took out his earbuds and waved. "I had a feeling you were going to show up today, you know. Looks like I was right! But wow, you're early, you all right?" He was sitting cross-legged on his bed, a music player and book in front of him. A couple pill bottles and other medical supplies were on his nightstand, but aside from that, there was no sign that anything was wrong with Lane. Yoshika was sprawled across his pillow, bone club loose in her fingers.

"Yep, everything's fine. I had to see off Barry - he's going to Snowpoint City, and we probably won't see him for some time."

"Ah, got it. You said something about going up there yourself, right?"

"Uh...hm, don't remember if I did, but that's what I'm planning to do."

"When are you going to go?"

"Today." At this answer, he gave me an appalled side glance.

"Oh, come on! Can't you wait a little longer? I want to come."

"Lane-"

"Don't even say it. I know what you're going to say and don't you dare." He pointed a finger at me as if this was a dramatic declaration, his tone of voice kidding, but his expression dead serious. I raised my hands in a placating gesture.

"Whoa, whoa, sheesh. I wasn't gonna gripe at you."

He retracted his pointing finger. "You weren't?"

"Actually yes I was. But come on, you know it's justified! It's only been a little over a month!"

"And that's plenty of time! Pokemon can do some pretty crazy stuff for healing, I'm perfectly fine and the only reason I'm still here is doctors' precaution!"

"Even so, people generally aren't supposed to go trekking through the mountains unless they're in good shape." I realized too late that by logic, this meant I shouldn't go to Snowpoint either, and I could see the look of evil enter Lane's eyes at the same time as I came to this realization.

"Hannah."

"Yes?"

"I'm going whether you like it or not."

"I knooow," I whined. "But I have to be the mom friend here and hassle you all the way."

"Well, mission accomplished. So can you wait an extra day while I get my stuff together or not?"

"...No."

"Hannah!"

"I can't! Half the reason I'm going is so I can keep up with Barry and help him out if he gets into trouble! I can't do that if he's a full day's travel ahead of me."

Lane huffed, his face turning sour for a moment or two. Our entire conversation so far had been in hushed tones to keep his parents from hearing, but now he raised his voice. "Hey mom!"

"Yes?" Her response was muffled through the walls.

"Can I go out? The Contest Hall's open and I want to show Hannah something!"

"Fine, just be back before noon! And leave your Pokemon here!"

"Moooooom!"

"You can take Yoshika and that's it!"

"Come oooon!"

"That's final!"

More huffing, and Lane hopped off the bed, grabbing his backpack and putting all his pokeballs in it anyways. I was a bit confused by these developments, and shot him a look that said as much.

"You said you're in a hurry to keep up with this guy Barry." was his simple defense. "I'm gonna go get some stuff at the store for the hike and we're off."

"Lane, I-"

"Fight me."

"What?"

"You want to stop me, you're gonna have to fight me."

"Oh my god." Both of us were very obviously joking around, but it was a funny mental image. I rolled my shoulders, repositioning my backpack, and waited for him to finish scuttling around the room and tossing things carelessly into his bag. When he zipped it shut, I headed for the door. Lane followed, Yoshika at his heels. I paused before opening it again to look back at Lane.

"Hey. If you're coming I've got conditions."

"Can we save it till we get outside?"

"Fine." I opened the door and we both hurried to leave the apartment - both of us were keenly aware his parents would be suspicious if they saw he had his backpack as full as it was. We only broke the silence again when we were fully outside the building and on our way to the Contest Hall.

"Okay, so the conditions."

"What about them?"

"As you probably know, I am, for good reason, on your parents' hit list. I'm the one who pretty much smuggled you out of here so if I were to do it again - this time _knowing_ you weren't supposed to leave - that would not really help my case. Not even a little. So I'm not going to help you sneak out of here or let you tag along with me when I leave."

"_What? _You just said-"

"I'm not done talking! And I never said anything about letting you come along."

"Well-"

"Shhhhh hear me out. I'm just tagging along for an innocent visit to the Contest Hall, maybe a visit to the store if the mood strikes us. Maybe we'll go to the Underground. And if we get anything at the store we could hypothetically leave it at my base because it was simply too heavy to carry. Then when I leave and you go home, what if - this is entirely hypothetical - what if you left again a few hours later, dropped by my secret base to pick up anything we left, and came to Mount Coronet. Where I would be hypothetically waiting for you."

"So if this were to happen - hypothetically of course - I could leave anything I wasn't technically supposed to have at your secret base?"

"Heavens no! I'd never condone such secrecy, at least not if I _knew_ about it." I said this with so much sarcastic emphasis I could practically see the air quotations. "Keep in mind though, for me to meet you by total coincidence at Mount Coronet, without your parents thinking you had come with me when I left, you'd-"

"Need to go back home first for a couple of hours. Hypothetically."

"Correct! That's condition one. Now that we've gotten all these purely hypothetical musings out of the way, here's condition number two. If I say you're stopping for a break you are stopping for a break. I don't care if you don't think you need one."

"Sure, ok."

"Condition three; no dangerous detours. If there's a way that looks like a shortcut, we aren't taking it. If we see an item out of reach, we aren't touching it. No clever ideas, just following the path."

"What if it's a life-or-death matter?"

"Then this condition is subject to change, but there won't _be_ any life-or-death situations."

"Any other conditions?"

"...Not that I can think of, but if I think up more I'll tell you."

"All right."

"To the Contest Hall, then?"

"I, uh...wasn't planning to go to the Hall at all, actually. I was just making an excuse to go buy what I needed without Mom catching on, since I still go in for Contests a lot."

"Fair enough. But hey, how have the Contests been, anyways? Are your Pokemon glad to be back or did they like battling better?"

"That opinion varies," Lane laughed a bit as he said this, and I realized I was in for a long discussion.

...

Several hours, a shopping montage, a visit to the Underground, and a pair of farewells later, I was on my way out of Hearthome again, this time with my team awake and in tow. It was about midday, so the sun was fully up and doing its best to cut through the day's chill. I tried to enjoy the meager warmth while I could. Even from a distance, I could tell earlier that morning that the caves were going to be cold, much colder than it already was outside.

The walk went much faster than I would've liked. Before long I was in front of the cave's entrance. I stopped to tug a large flashlight and thick jacket from my bag (just two of the things I'd bought in preparation for this) and once I had done with them what I needed to, I headed in.

Lane and I had agreed on a general meeting point once I was in Mount Coronet - according to my town map, the first stretch of path through the mountains was very straightforward. I would head about twenty minutes in and stop to wait. The walk went uneventfully, wild Pokemon encounters aside, and eventually I found a spot to settle. I've been using this time to type, even though Dazzle seems to be taking joy in pushing the keys on my laptop anytime I'm not hawkishly watching her.

Until next time, Hannah, out.


End file.
